Sunday, November 16, 2008

Groups protest settlement fundraiser at New York hotel

Eight groups representing tens of thousands of people in the United States, Palestine and Israel have called on the Marriott Marquis hotel in Manhattan to cancel the 17 November dinner for the Brooklyn-based Hebron Fund aiming to raise money for Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

Israeli minister openly calls for assassinating Hamas leaders

Israeli Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz yesterday said that Israel must “stop talking and launch a personal targeted killing policy against the Hamas government.”

'Israel tasked with spying on Americans'

The US entrusted Israeli intelligence services with spying on Americans after the 9/11 attacks, an intelligence journalist has revealed.

'Halt Israeli Nuclear program'

Dimona Nuclear Reactor, Negev Desert, Israel

"The Obama administration should make a key priority of persuading Israel to join the negotiations for a universal, verified treaty that bans the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear explosives, commonly called the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT)," Ha'aretz quoted the report.

EU parliamentarian: "Hamas is fighting an occupation"

More people need to stand up to America's orthodoxy of bias in favor of Israel. The EU has to stop kowtowing to US foreign policy and show a more vigorous independence. And EU members need to provide more than lip service to the suffering of the Palestinians by actually standing by their principles.

Obama election spurs race crimes around country

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

Iraqi ministers agree to extend U.S. military presence

U.S. soldiers walking under the "crossed swords" monument in the Green Zone in Baghdad on Sunday. (Karim Kadim/The Associated Press)

The draft approved Sunday requires coalition forces to withdraw from Iraqi cities and towns by the summer of 2009 and from the country by the end of 2011. An earlier version had language giving some flexibility to that deadline, with both sides discussing timetables and timelines for withdrawal, but the Iraqis managed to have the deadline set in stone, a significant negotiating victory. The United States has around 150,000 troops in Iraq.