Comrade Karim's piece in Counterpunch is the best analysis of the Lebanon's situation that I have read in English. (thanks Karim)
PS And since the comments' section is closed, I should say hi to Harirites and Phalanges on the blog. It is the polite thing after all.

What happened in Halba? Amer sent me this email and it has useful information: I should have said that some of the people in the SSNP office were civilians, like that immigrant from Australia: "Are you sure about the tag you gave SSNPers in Halba (civilians)??? By most accounts I read (including the one by a massacre survivor,) there were several hours of intense clashes before the massacre. The version I found most believable: Khalid Dahir and the Mufti's men wanted to do to the Halba SSNP HQ what they did to opposition offices in Tripoli and other parts of the North (burn and sack it). As the demonstration (along with many armed men) advanced, the local SSNP members barricaded in their HQ and fought back, there were several hours of clashes, with RPGs, mortars etc... several were killed in the fighting including -at least- two FMers and two of the SSNP fighters.Then, a truce was proposed (through a local Sheikh) to hand over the HQ and guarantee the men's safety. You know the rest of the story (according to most account, the videos we saw were "early" ones, before the FMers brought axes and started cutting the dead into pieces. Reportedly, a soldier (they were watching) approached them asking to hand over the bodies and stop the mutilation, a fighter answered "just give us 15 more minutes," and they got it.) They also used creative ways to kill the wounded (those who surrendered and were not wounded were shot and killed right away at very close range.) Reportedly, they smashed the head of one with a rock, and placed the other in a car and burned it. The Army until two days ago was refusing to hand over the bodies to the families as to not incite revenge killings when the families see the mutilated state of the dead." But when you read this disturbing account, please remember that Robert Worth of the New York Times has officially declared the Hariri militia in Lebanon a "myth." So the killers here are mythical killers.

"A week ago in a police station shooting range on Baghdad's western outskirts, the American-allied Iraqi militiaman found what one or more GIs had been using for target practice -- a copy of the Quran, Islam's holy book." (thanks Sophie)

In Human Rights Watch reports on Lebanon there is one bizarre element: the calls "on the Lebanese government." Human Rights Watch acts as if there is a state in Lebanon which is above and beyond the warring factions. And then HRW said: "Supporters of the pro-government groups – the Future Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party – also resorted to violence against civilians and offices associated with opposition groups in areas under their control in northern Lebanon, the Beka` and the Chouf. Many of these attacks violated international humanitarian law. Hezbollah reported that PSP fighters detained two of its followers and executed them. Human Rights Watch examined photos of the two Hezbollah members showing that at least one had been shot in the head at very close range while the other appears to have had part of the skin of his forearm removed. Videos posted on youtube.com of the fighting in the northern town of Halba between armed men supporting the government and members of the opposition SSNP show wounded men, apparently belonging to the SSNP, lying on the ground being beaten and ill-treated by gunmen." The reference to Halba makes it sound as if the massacre in Halba was a clash between militias when it was against SSNP civilians, from most accounts. But Human Rights Wach is correct in the premise: that both sides committed crimes against civilians.

It feels weird without the comments. Wow. I feel like a dictator who just gained new powers. Certainly, the professional haters have used the section for sabotage especially as of late. I feel that I now can just praise myself unconditionally: what do you have to say about that, huh? OK. Let me inaugurate the new era with those chants: (repeat after me): praise be to me. Glory be to me. And as Al-Hallaj said (about me of course): I am righteousness. OK. I have a feeling that this new no-comments era is going to be great for my self-esteem, which is quite healthy anyway. (Don't you have the feeling that the professional haters have the urge to break their computer screens as we speak? I do)
PS How come nobody commented here? Oh, ooops. I forgot. OK.

Hasan Munaymnah assures you: there is no American-Israeli plan or conspiracy in the Middle East. And US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never took place. And there are no civil wars in Somalia, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Wake up people. He also assures you that Israel does not have any designs on Lebanon.

Robert Worth of the New York Times is getting worse by the second. He will soon deserve to earn the Hassan Fattah prize for lousy journalism. First, notice the headline: like there was no sectarian conflict before last week, and Saudi Arabia and the Hariri Inc have not been funding and propagating one of the most crude sectarian campaigns that we have seen. And he repeats a refrain from Hariri propaganda: that Islamist websites are buzzing with calls for Jihad to support...Hariri militia in Lebanon. What is the evidence for that? This is what happens when you send correspondents who don't know the language or the culture and who become slaves to the handful people who they talk to...in English of course. You really think that Salafites and Al-Qa`idah are so keen on Sa`d Hariri and his leadership? And then Worth does his best to dispel the notion of Hariri militia. He says: "Hariri’s Sunni militia had proved to be largely mythical: its fighters were quickly thrashed." So the existence of the militia is a myth because it did not fight? Does that mean that armies that don't fight, don't exist? So the Egyptian army in 1967 was a myth because it did not fight? And notice that most of the story in the article is based on the account of one person: Mr. Obeid: and only because he spoke English to your correspondent. And then Mr. Worth treats you to the inevitable theory of "Shoes in Arab Culture": "“They are coming after us, and this time with shoes, not weapons, to humiliate us even more.” And it is very clear that Worth received marching orders from the Hariri media office that handles all foreign correspondents in Lebanon--the ones who arrive to the capital clueless and not the ones who know the place and don't need "the help" of Hariri media office. Notice how he reports the massacre of SSNP CIVILIAN MEMBERS in HALBA: he reports it as if "an angry mob" heroically attacked a militia. And notice that his account of the shooting at the funeral in Tariq Jadidah is derived from the early reports of Hariri media, which later were proven to be false: the Hariri marchers threw grenades at the shopkeeper before he leaped out at them with his AK-47. And notice that he reports that they merely asked him for some respect. I also noticed that Hariri media office which fed him the story did not tell him the slogans that the marchers were chanting. And typically he reports the story (he got that one from MEMRI) about Hariri TV's Sahar Al-Khatib: but he did not report the crude and vulgar (and classist) tenor of her remarks. Today, Worth (whose reporting was less horrible before) proved that he is rising in the New York Times. And notice that New York Times reporters now treat the Hariri and Dahlan sides in the Middle East with the same way they treat the Zionist side: can you find one critical remark about the Hariri side in the article? And most importantly: do you learn in journalism school that you need to speak to one side only in a conflict? It must be the Martin Peretz school of journalism. (thanks Amer and Ussama)

Regarding comments: what options do I have if I don't have time to moderate? What about people becoming "members of the blog"--whatever that means? Advise me NOW. The current system of Zionist,Haririte/Haririte, and anti-Semitic spamming is not sustainable. If no options are available I will just close it down entirely in a few days. And the people whose opinions I respect, know my email: and many do send me their opinions anyway.

There are many situations in which in George W. Bush appears so ill-informed about world affairs. But the most glaring ones are the ones in which he addresses Arab/Muslim populations like he did in Sharm Ash-Shaykh. Are there no advisers of his who can tell him: really. You are so loathed and despised by Arabs and Muslims that it would be better if you just don't address them? Unless he suffers from delusions and illusions that gather during his stay at King Abdullah's "farm" in Janadiriyyah.

A reliable Saudi source tells me that Prince Sultan (Abu Bribes) is quite ill: that he underwent surgery for stomach cancer.

We had other reasons to be suspicious. For example, the State Department issued a "Search for Justice" poster offering a reward for information related to the bombing. After the poster was translated into Arabic, it ended up warning anyone against helping us.""

.

"...that Israel took in the 1967 Six-Day War. Hootnick spent extensive time with six attractive young Israelis from across the political spectrum."

Another Ethiopian maid commits suicide in Lebanon. An-Nahar (the right-wing, sectarian Christian, anti-Palestinian, anti-Syrian newspaper) added that she throw a child of her employer from the balcony before committing suicide but I don't believe An-Nahar.

If you get to serve as a US or Israeli puppet in the Middle East, you too can dream to one day hold hands with the president of the US.

"The six nations of the GCC, which also includes Qatar and Oman, earned $381 billion from their exports of oil in 2007 and another $26 billion from gas, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF). If the oil price remains at about $100 a barrel, they will reap a cumulative windfall of almost $9 trillion by 2020, reckons the McKinsey Global Institute: a vast number relative to the size of the GCC economies, which had a combined GDP of $800 billion in 2007."

In the footsteps of Antoine Lahd: "Israeli intelligence chief says Abbas might flee if peace fails"

Those kings and princes would sell their mothers in the oil market for Bush: "The statement came hours after George Bush, the US president, arrived in Riyadh for talks with King Abdullah of Saudia Arabia." (thanks anonymous)

"Boubacar Bah, a 52-year-old tailor from Guinea living in Brooklyn, is one of 71 detainees to have died in the last four years in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement." (thanks Laleh)

"But it is still astonishing to be reminded of quite how odd Nixon and his circle were. He wore a necktie when he was in his dressing gown. He once visited his mother, camera crew in tow, to wish her a happy birthday—and shook her by the hand. He sent memos to his wife, Pat, about how “RN” would like his furniture arranged."

"The last words he managed to scrawl in his lab journal were “desire to laugh”. That desire soon left him. As he cycled home with a companion, perhaps the most famous bike ride in history, he had no idea he was moving. But in his house the furniture was ghoulishly mutating and spinning, and the neighbour who brought him milk as an antidote was “a witch with a coloured mask”."

.

"In exile, Palestinians have been harassed, attacked or chased away. PLO fighters were forced to flee Jordan after an uprising in 1970. Lebanese Christians destroyed the camps of Tel Zaatar and Qarantina in the 1970s, and massacred Palestinians at Sabra and Chatila in 1982. Israelis besieged the PLO in Beirut the same year, sending PLO leaders to secondary exile in Tunis, and the Syrians did the same in Tripoli in 1984. In 1991 300,000 Palestinians, many of them wealthy and long-settled, were hounded from Kuwait after their leaders foolishly praised Saddam Hussein's invasion of the Gulf emirate. Libya's erratic ruler, Muammar Qaddafi, deported thousands more in the 1990s, saying that since they had signed the Oslo peace accords with Israel, Palestinians should “go home”. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, nearly all its 20,000 Palestinians have been forced to the borders, where some still languish in dusty desert camps....But Egyptian authorities are notoriously pernickety. Lana Baydas, a British-educated professor at the American University in Cairo, has waited 18 months for residency papers, during which time she has had to fly 18 times to Syria, the only country she can travel freely to on her Syrian-Palestinian laissez-passer, so as not to outstay her month-long Egyptian “tourist” visas. When she tried to explain the bother to a friend, she says ruefully, the reply was, “Can't you just stop being Palestinian?”...Similarly, Nahr al-Bared's homeless residents are lobbying to ensure that when their camp is rebuilt, it will still be sectioned into districts named for the Galilee villages the original refugees came from."

Although I still think that the Economist is still the best magazine there is, but there are serious problems, not to mention the editorial policies although I skip the editorials. But it is such a rich magazine. But they have some weird obsessions: like Cuba, Zimbabwe, and recently Nepal. Their correspondent can't understand or accept the strong showing of the Maoists in Nepal: so he/she give weird and twisted explanations on that matter.

"When Abed drove me up to the north of the country three days ago..." By the way, why wasn't Abed invited to Doha? (thanks Wassim)

I liked this title in the Economist about Lebanon: "Iran's tool fights America's stooge"

A resident of Doha, Qatar sent me this: "I thought you would like to hear (actually read) such kind of news. Well i've been residing in Doha-Qatar for the past one and half years and all has been going nice, smooth and tidy. Hahaha, until those lebanese 'leaders' of ours came to Doha for their meeting. I tell you, for the first time in AAAAAAGES, Doha experiences a 2o minutes electricity failure!!! The day they arrive, the power shuts down! How wierd for us Lebanese in here to feel the 'darkness' again, man..."

My father liked this singer. Widad had a great song that my father liked: it was titled "Btindam" (you shall regret). Find it on-line NOW.

David Ignatius tells the correspondent of the mouthpiece of Prince Salman (Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat) that he "understands" "the resistance of Lebanese to Israeli forces" and that he "understands" "the responses of Palestinians to Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza." How come he does not write that in his column and does not say that in interviews with him in US media? Or is this like `Arafat: one thing to Arab media, and another to US media?

People who are close to me have been urging me for years to shut down the comments' section. I finally reached that conclusion. I mean, why should I give a free platform to Zionists, Harirites, and Lebanese Phalanges? I am going to give this a week, if the spamming and the repetitious postings and the falsification of names continue I will close down the section completely and permanently. It has become a festival of hate and venom--from both sides.
PS Basically, I will wait one week to see if people can adhere to the simple rules: that they use their names when posting, that they don't make death threats, that they link to articles but not post the whole articles, and that they refrain from expressing hate toward whole peoples and such. Otherwise, the comments will still not be censored or edited. If that does not happen, I will close down the comments' section permanently.

Spreading democracy and...prisons around the world: "The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come." (thanks anonymous)

My article in Al-Akhbar: "A coup...against a coup."

Please write your own captions, but look at them. I mean, look at t hem. Does this not summarize the Bush Doctrine? (AP)

...off to Anaheim. Returning on Sunday.

The death of former Kuwaiti Emir, Sa`d Al-`Abdullah was barely noted in the Arabic press. It was assumed by all that he was already dead. He ruled for nine long days in 2006, and those days were characterized by peace and prosperity.

Comments section cop reports to me that she/he was astonished to see the number of times people post the same post or link in the comments' section. She/he is under instruction to not delete or censor but to remove repetitive comments. She/he is relishing the task. She/he is being paid in smoothies.

Don't you like it when advocates of House of Saud in the Arab media claim that they only oppose Syria and Iran because the two regimes are not democratic?

They (on LBC-TV) asked Egyptian movie star, Faruq Al-Fishawi, on whether he hates anybody. He said that he hates George W. Bush, and that he has never hated anybody the way he hates Bush. The hosts tried to no avail to make him say nice things about Laura Bush. They quickly changed the subject.

AlArabiya TV reported on the items to be discussed between Bush and the (democratically-elected--all US clients are "democratically elected, you know) Saudi King. The list included "Iranian influence in the region" but not the Palestinian question.

I was surprised not to see Yasir `Abd-Rabbuh cheering Bush in the Israeli knesset.

AlArabiya TV is not reporting on An-Nakbah anniversary now. They are airing a special report on "an American list of the (sexiest) women." They identified the source of the list as "the most important men's magazine in the US, but they did not use the word "sexy." Instead: they said it was a list of the most "exciting" women.

The poem Against by Palestinian poet Rashid Husayn (my translation):
"Against the revolutionaries of my
country injuring a spike
Against a child—any child—carrying
a grenade
Against my sister studying the muscles
of a rifle
Against whatever you want….but
what does even a prophet or a prophetess to do
when their eyes drink the horses
of killers
Against a child becoming a hero
at ten
Against the heart of the tree bearing
mines
Against the bushes of my orchard
becoming gallows
Against the basin of flowers in
my land becoming gallows
Against whatever you want…but
after the burning of my country,
my comrades, and my youth"

10 days after triggering the crisis, Walid Jumblat paid tribute to resistance against Israel--his reference to Hizbullah. We are only a months from the next parliamentary election. Stay tuned.

""The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel," Lewis said. "It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties."" (thanks Samir)

Lebanese genius update. "Once again, Lebanon shines abroad. Fadi Maalouf is today a name famous across Europe, ever since he became one of the favorite voices on “Deutschland Sucht Den Superstar”, the German version of “Superstar”, broadcasted on RTL." (thanks Tarke)

""Ten years after debt was first put on the international agenda, developing countries are still giving $5 in debt repayments to the rich world for every $1 they get back in aid."

"Members of the Haifa lobby had several pieces of evidence to bolster their cause. One argument was a quote from a character in Herzl's book Altneuland." What flimsy evidence. Altneuland is a work of fiction and fantasy. Remember that in the book the Arab character, Rashed Bey appears enthusiastic about Zionism, and he spoke of Arab support for Israel.

This is incredible. How can you not mock Lebanonesia and its Lebanonese media? Look at An-Nahar's page 18 (somebody find me the link NOW, I could not find it except on the flashplayer version): the paper is doing its daily bragging about Lebanese genius around the world. This time it is about this Lebanonese high school coach in Ohio whose team won a blender or something. So that proud guy must have sent the news and his picture to the paper to brag. Wait: I won a potato last week: shall I send an item to An-Nahar?

Take a look at Saudi media. Do you notice that they use the same expressions, phrases, analogies, and slogans? But it is a mere coincidence, I am sure.

Boo hoo hoo: "Watching the news from Lebanon, it's poignant to read the title of a new memoir by Jordan's former foreign minister, Marwan Muasher, "The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation." The daily headlines tell us that centrist Arabs such as Muasher are becoming an endangered species."

I just read in As-Safir that Hizbullah and Jumblat made their first direct contact in months. Am I supposed to find that cute? Mark my words: Hariri, Jumblat, and Hizbullah may run on the same list, again. And I am sure that they will not forget the widow of Bashir Gemayyel (who ran on Hariri-Jumblat-Hizbullah list in Beirut last time): who used to prepare for Ariel Sharon his favorite meals--as he reported in his memoirs. This proves my theory: sectarians of a feather, flock together.

I have received complaints that people are posting the same comment or post over and over again. Comments' section cop informs me that she/he will delete repeated (redundant) comments or posts. Beware. Of course, it is known that this will hurt the feelings of those who are so intoxicated with their own words that they post them over and over again. The policy of the site will not change: just post your comment or link or piece once.

She is holding a key to her house from which she was kicked out by Zionist occupation forces in 1948. They will return. (AFP)

Hariri media. Just take a look at this front page of Hariri rag, Al-Mustaqbal. First, notice that the paper that usually covers on the front page the sneezes and coughs of Bush, is not putting the news of Bush's festive trip to Israel and his speeches on its front page. Too embarrassing for the clients of the Cheney team. Secondly, (and this should be noticed by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International), this official Hariri daily is inciting violence against the poor Syrian workers in Lebanon: it is claiming in a front page story that the huts and tents where Syrian workers live are mere centers for Syrian mukhabarat. This paper, among others including An-Nahar, are responsible for the political climate that continues to cause death and injury to Syrian workers in Lebanon.
PS I have visited Al-Mustaqbal offices in Beirut. I was interviewed at length (in a two-parts interview) on feminism when the paper allowed one of its reporters, Fatmah Huhu, to edit a feminist page--before it ended the experiment. I remember from that visit how many staffers told me that they are not necessarily in agreement with Rafiq Hariri although they work there.

"When Palestinians insist on naming their country, their cities, and their villages with their original names, they are not only resisting the vulgar names that Zionism has bestowed on the land, they are also insisting on a geographic memory that Israel has all but succeeded to erase physically. Zionist cruelty has been such that Israel insisted for 50 years after its creation in denying that the Palestinians even exist as a people, or as a name; that the very name "Palestinians" should not even be uttered. For Zionists, the very name "Palestinian" functions as some magical incantation that could obliterate them at the existential level. They are not necessarily wrong in their impression, for the name Palestinian is itself the strongest form of resistance against their official memory. The name "Palestinian" has also been generative of continuities in Palestinian culture and life, in Palestinian identity and nationality, things that Israel had hoped it obliterated completely and whose survival will always threaten its mnemonic operation of inventing a fictional memory of non-Palestine, of non- Palestinians...Hard as it tried to legitimise itself, the Palestinian Authority could not but be seen for what it is: the creation of the Israeli occupation, an authority which in its structure and logic is not unlike all colonial puppet regimes in Asia and Africa serving their masters, not excluding the Judenröte (Jewish councils) that the Nazis set up in occupied Poland's ghettos to run Jewish life, collect taxes, and run the post offices, inter alia; or the Bantustans that apartheid South Africa set up as alternative homelands. The Palestinian Authority's attempt to acquire the power of naming the Palestinian and Jewish peoples failed as much as Israel's attempts before it. Palestinians continue to insist on their name and on their inclusion in a Palestinian nation, while non-Israeli Jews insist on not joining Israeli nationality, no matter how much they may support Israel. The politics of naming is the politics of power and resistance. The power to name creates fictional histories against material realities. While Israel has succeeded in imposing physical and geographic realties, its attempt to obliterate historical memory has failed. Palestinians are always standing in the way of its falsification of their history and its own."

The only media that remained secular during this crisis in Lebanon are: As-Safir, Al-Akhbar, New TV, and AlJazeera. Only in those media will you find criticisms of both sides--even when sympathies of writers are made clear. Trying to find criticisms of Hariri on, say in An-Nahar or on House of Saud's Al-Arabiya is like expecting to see criticisms of Bush in Washington Times.

Biological piracy (by Israel) by comrade Rami.

The death of Ta'if by comrade Khalid.

Comrade Iskandar on the failures of both sides in Lebanon.

Bridge of Return by Palestinian poet Tawfiq Zayyad (my translation):
"My dear people!!
With eyelids
I roll out the path of your return,
with eyelids.
I embrace your wound
and pick up the thorns of the path,
with eyelids.
With the palms of the hand,
I grind the granite stone,
with the palms of the hand.
And from my flesh,
I build the bridge of your return,
on both coasts."

From the poem I Call On You by Palestinian poet Tawfiq Zayyad (my translation):
“I call on you
I press your hands
I kiss the ground under your feet
and I say: I sacrifice myself for you
I give you as a gift
the light of my eyes
and the warmth of heart, I give you
My tragedy that I live
Is my share of your tragedies
I call on you
I press your hands
I kiss the ground under your feet
and I say: I sacrifice myself for you
I did not humiliate myself in my homeland
and I did not lower my shoulders
I stood facing my oppressors
orphaned, naked, and bare foot
I call on you
I press your hands
I kiss the ground under your feet
and I say: I sacrifice myself for you
I carried my blood on my palm
I never lowered my flags
and I cared for the green grass
over the graves of my ancestors”

From a poem by Palestinian poet Tawfiq Zayyad (my translation)
"My land..! My friends!..
My stolen treasure..! My history..
The bones of my father and
grandfather are denied to me,
so how can I forgive?
If they mount the gallows for
me...I am not forgiving
These green villages of ours
have all become our blood
and scattered traces
Ones have remained
and still fighting
with nails...
Do not tell me..do not tell me..!
Even tombstones have been scattered."

"Hamas condemns the Holocaust". Finally, but it is a lie that Aqsa TV is an independent TV channel. Hamas can't have it both ways. (thanks Sellam)

I received those pictures from Kanwal with this message: "thought you might like to use these, especially today. It's a sequence (in the order attached) of Ahmed, who lived in Shatila last summer during the bombardment of Nahr el Bared camp, which is where he's grown up. He likes watermelon and calls it 'batteeehaa' with a soft H, and his face is painted here for a carnival to integrate kids from Shatila with the newly arrived kids from Nahr el Bared."

This weekend I will be speaking on Palestine here.

Wake up the children and release the pigs from the barn. The Arab League delegation in Lebanon announced the accord. Politically, the opposition got what it wanted...and more. But many political positions remain unchanged with one exception: Jumblat managed to maintain and boost his leadership among the Druzes; Hizbullah maintained its leadership among the Shi`ites, although I expect that Amal would make some gains because they may be perceived as "effective"--defined in terms of thuggery--in street battles; the Christian organizations remain unchanged although `Awn may benefit by arguing that his agreement with Hizbullah kept Christian areas away from the "battle" scenes; but the Hariri leadership among the Sunnis is shaken. Sa`d Hariri disappearance for days during the crisis and the humiliation of the Hariri militia all over Lebanon (the massacre of SSNP members in Halba notwithstanding) have severely damaged the Hariri position: but this damage in no way went to the side of the opposition. The pro-Hizbullah Sunnis remain very weak and barely representative of Sunni public opinion. There will be competitors among the Sunni friends and rivals of Hariri. Certainly, Bahiyya Al-Hariri--politics aside--proved a much more capable and competent leader than her nephew (and she performed well under pressure) but the misogyny of the House of Saud will prevent her emergence as a leader. But is is mildly amusing how Hariri supporters all over Lebanon, and even in Hariri media (called "progressive" by Thomas Friedman) talk about Al-Qa`idah: they use the threat of Al-Qa`idah as if Al-Qa`idah is a large Muslim Sunni state with a large intimidating army, and that it is willing to deploy troops in Lebanon at a short notice to help bolster Hariri leadership. But the Lebanese will now resume what they do best: to pretend that they love each others and that war will never afflict their land. And the New York Times editorialized on Lebanon today: "President Bush claims Lebanon’s 2005 “Cedar Revolution” — which ended 30 years of Syrian military occupation — as a triumph of his policy of democracy promotion. Given Lebanon’s history, that was always naïve." Naive? Naive? You think that we forgot the celebratory articles and editorials in the New York Times celebrating the Hummus Revolution, when Hassan Fattah was dispatched to Beirut to join the festivities? This is like Thomas Friedman and Noah Feldman: how they were enthusiastic cheerleaders for the Bush's war in Iraq and now they both pose as critics of the war. Who are you fooling?

"On this, his second, and presumably last, visit to the Holy Land as the President of the United States, Mr Bush brought with him some "beautiful presents" for Mr Peres. But as Channel One's reporter Ayala Hasson tantalisingly explained, the details could not be disclosed "for security reasons". What could this mean? True, the newspaper Yedhiot Ahronot had in the morning speculated that the US President would mark Israel's 60th by transferring "goodies" negotiated between the two governments in the preceding weeks, such as "advanced types of armament, fighter planes, cruise missiles and new radar systems that will increase the early-warning time for surface-to-surface missile fire". But you had to hope that the mysterious gifts he brought to lunch at the Israeli President's official residence yesterday were a little more, well, homely."

"Thousands took to the streets to commemorate those exiled or killed in the conflict that followed the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. More than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled, their property was expropriated and they have not been allowed to return. Nearly 5 million Palestinians and their descendants still live in makeshift refugee camps across the neighbouring region."

Yes, this guy with his exceptional brain powers is going to save Zionism on the land of Palestine. The delusions of Zionism are part of its mortal crisis.

"I am an anarchist, and according to anarchist principles nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization. In a certain sense the movement towards globalization where capitalists are trying to leap over nation state barriers, creates a kind of opportunity for movement to ignore national barriers, and to bring people together globally, across national lines in opposition to globalization of capital, to create globalization of people, opposed to traditional notion of globalization." (thanks Kathy)

The testimonies on AlJazeera by survivors of An-Nakbah are powerful and touching but the accompanying music is silly.

Make no mistake about it. The celebrations in Israeli on the anniversary of the destruction of Palestine are intended to camouflage the moral and political crisis that will doom Zionism on the land of the Palestinians.

"Falling Cedars"