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60 Yrs. of Israeli Occupation
Catastrophe Commemorated
Arab League: Dialogue Better Than Sanctions
60 Yrs. of Israeli Occupation
Catastrophe Commemorated
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Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Thursday held a national day of mourning to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) which marks 60 years of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands.
Palestinians raised black flags on rooftops and went on a one-hour strike to mark the event.
In 1948, the Jews drove out the Palestinians to the Gaza Strip, West Bank and established an illegitimate occupying regime, Arab News reported.
The Higher National Committee for Commemorating Nakba called on all Palestinians to participate in the demonstrations to protest “the celebrations of the occupation’s state (Israel) which was built on the ruins of our people, villages and cities“ and called them “to stick to their legitimate right of return.“
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Palestinians wave their national flag and carry banners as a huge 10-meter long iron key is brought to the symbolic ÒReturn GateÓ at Aida refugee camp in the West Bank.
Hundreds of protesting Israeli Arabs clashed with police in northern Beit-ul-Muqaddas. At least five policemen and six demonstrators were injured, including an Arab member of Israel’s Parliament, AP reported.
The violence came after a march Thursday marking the 60th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands and uprooting of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 war waged by the illegitimate regime of Israel. Palestinians call the displacement “Nakba“ meaning “catastrophe“ in Arabic.
Israeli authorities said some protesters threw rocks at police and cars after the march.

Israeli Incursion
At least 25 Israeli tanks and armored bulldozers entered Abassan, east of Khan Yunis, killing a Palestinian and wounding 14 others.
Palestinian witnesses said a total of 25 tanks and bulldozers entered the area, setting off battles with activists.
Israeli forces carried out at least four air strikes late Tuesday, including one attack that struck a group of Palestinians, witnesses said on Wednesday.
An Islamic Jihad activist was killed and another group member was wounded, said Moaiya Hassanain of the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Three Hamas activists were also wounded in an earlier incursion, Hassanain added.
Palestinian medics said they found the body of a Palestinian woman in a village in southern Gaza after Israeli forces raided the area.
The woman was discovered late Wednesday in her home in the Abassan village in southern Gaza.
Palestinian health officials said she was 35 years old and had seven children, APTN reported.
Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli troops raided Palestinians in Abassan.
Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a series of targets. One struck Palestinians who were using abandoned houses as cover.

Lies About Peace Progress
Palestinian officials said the Israeli premier has deceived people by claiming that ’significant progress’ is achieved in peace talks.
The Palestinian Authority officials said they were surprised to hear after this week’s meeting in Beit-ul-Moqaddas between Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas about the “significant progress“ that had been allegedly achieved during the talks.
“The announcement by Olmert’s office was aimed at “misleading“ the Israeli public and creating an illusion about the peace process“, the Israeli daily “Jerusalem Post“ quoted an official as saying.
“This is a big lie. The statement was issued by Olmert’s office before President Abbas returned to Ramallah and it came as a surprise to us. We still don’t know what progress he’s talking about“.
They said that the Palestinians had not sensed any real changes in Israel’s position.
“The only thing that happened was an exchange of views regarding the future borders of the Palestinian state.“
Peace talks have produced no tangible results. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad warned Thursday that peace process is facing difficulties, when compared with its declared goals.

Call for Olmert’s Resignation
Ehud Olmert’s political opponents demanded his resignation Friday, saying new allegations that the Israeli prime minister illegally accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a US citizen render which him unfit for the country’s top job.
Olmert said in a nationally television speech Thursday that he never took illegal campaign contributions but if indicted, he would resign. But some Israeli lawmakers said the new investigation was reason enough for him to leave office. The investigation is the fifth opened into Olmert’s activities since he took office in 2006.
Olmert’s legal troubles are diverting his attention from running the country, and a regime like Israel, with an existential threat, needs a full-time prime minister, said Arieh Eldad of the hardline National Union party.
“We need a much better leader at this time, and Israel should go to general elections in order to replace him with a better government,“ Eldad said.
Eldad’s call was echoed by other politicians from opposition parties and by a small number of lawmakers who belong to Olmert’s governing coalition.
Olmert on Thursday made a statement, admitting taking cash from an American businessman. He said he will resign if he’s indicted.
He said he would not fight to stay in office if he is charged. “If I am indicted, I will resign my post,“ he said.
Arab League: Dialogue Better Than Sanctions
Arab League’s deputy secretary-general said on Thursday that constructive dialogue was a better way of resolving US differences with Syria than the extension of sanctions announced by Washington.
The Arab League prefers “resolving differences between Syria and the United States through the American administration’s opening of a constructive dialogue with Damascus,“ Ahmed ben Helli told journalists, AFP reported.
US President George W. Bush said on Wednesday that he was extending sanctions against Syria following Washington’s charge that Damascus had been building a nuclear reactor with North Korea’s help.
“I took these actions to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States constituted by the actions of the Government of Syria,“ Bush said in the order.
Bush accused Syria of “supporting terrorism ... pursuing weapons of mass destruction and missile programs including the recent revelation of illicit nuclear cooperation with North Korea.“
Syria said the US accusations were as bogus as American claims that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction in 2003.
Ben Helli said “Arab League summits, including the one (held in March) in Damascus, call in their resolutions for dialogue and diplomacy to take precedence as a means of resolving differences between countries and of reaching understanding.“
Landmine Blast
Three people were killed and five wounded on Friday when the minibus they were traveling in, was destroyed by a landmine detonated by Kurdish guerrillas in southeast Turkey.

Hosting Rebels
Sudan protested France’s continued hosting of an exiled Darfur rebel chief, Abdulwahid Elnur, who has been reluctant to enter into peace talks over the deadly conflict.
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Pak Violence Resurges
Pakistani fighters killed a policeman and wounded three on Friday in a gunbattle in northwest Pakistan, where violence has resurged after a Taliban leader withdrew from peace talks brokered by tribal elders.
Pakistan had suffered a wave of suicide attacks and bomb blasts following an army assault on a mosque in Islamabad in July last year, but there was a lull in the violence after a new government, made up of parties opposed to President Pervez Musharraf, came to power in late March, Reuters reported.
The new government said it would negotiate to bring peace to the region along the border with Afghanistan, and is trying to use influence with the fiercely independent tribes living there to quell the Taliban insurgency.
The Taliban announced a ceasefire last month but later pulled out of talks after the government refused to accept Taliban demand that the army withdraw troops from Mehsud tribal lands.
On Tuesday, a suicide bomber killed three people, including a policeman, in the town of Bannu, near North Waziristan.

Abkhazia Claims 5th Georgian Drone Downed
Abkhazia displayed on Friday fragments of a Georgian surveillance drone it allegedly downed on Thursday.
Abkhazia said it shot down the fifth Georgian surveillance drone since the beginning of the year over the village of Gudava, RIA Novosti reported.
“Georgia has repeatedly ignored our warnings, and is deliberately continuing to make the situation worse by risking civilian lives. This is another proof of aggressiveness on the part Tbilisi and its reluctance to implement prior agreements,“ Garri Kupalba, Abkhazia’s deputy defense minister, who showed the fragments, quoted from the ministry’s statement.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry called Abkhazia’s claims “absurd,“ and said they were aimed at escalating tensions in the region. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili also denied the report on Thursday.

NATO Can End S. Afghanistan Command
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NATO could change its rotating command of southern Afghanistan and give the role to a single country, amid concern that the current system is boosting the Taliban insurgency, NATO’s top US general said Thursday.
“Everything is open,“ General Bantz Craddock told AFP when asked how command of the Taliban hotbed area, which currently alternates between Canada, Britain and the Netherlands, was likely to change. Craddock said he received a letter from the commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, saying “it would be better if we had one country take lead as opposed to rotate.“
Regional governors from Afghanistan warned earlier this week that failure by Western powers to coordinate their military deployment could ultimately play into the hands of the Taliban, because some countries had gained a reputation as softer targets while others were more aggressive.
Craddock said he would make a recommendation but the decision would be made in the political arena.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last month that he expects a significant addition of US forces in Afghanistan next year, though the Pentagon has stressed that such a move would depend on deep troop cuts in Iraq.
Nearly 70 percent of the foreign forces are based in southern and eastern Afghanistan where the violence is most deadly.

Afghan Prisoners Mistreated
The Australian military said Friday it is investigating allegations that soldiers mistreated prisoners in Afghanistan.
The claims were made by a senior Afghan National Army commander during a weekend meeting with NATO-led International Security Assistance Force officers, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
The Australian Defense Force did not confirm any details but said it takes all claims very seriously.
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Decades of Fear, Exhaustion
The 60th anniversary of the creation of the illegitimate regime of Israel provides an appropriate occasion for looking back at the past, if only to assess the situation now and plan for the future.
It has been 60 years of pain, of hopes constantly dashed--and that is only for the Palestinians living in exile. For those in the West Bank, Gaza and Beit-ul-Muqaddas, it has been 60 years of absolute misery--being forced to live, not in the sunlight like other peoples, but in the shadow of constant humiliation, discrimination, injustice and oppression, of homes bulldozed, lands stolen, arbitrary arrest, no work, being forced to live in squalor, sons and daughters slaughtered by Israeli military.
It has been 60 years of fear and exhaustion. No wonder for Palestinians it is the 60th anniversary of “Al-Nakba“, the Catastrophe. Nor is there any sign of the catastrophic consequences ending. Indeed, for the Palestinians in Gaza, things have never been worse. Despite the Bush administration’s prediction of a settlement by the end of the year, the so-called road map is kept locked away by the Israelis. Indeed, the way things are going, with the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert under investigation by the police, there may not even be an Israeli government to negotiate with at the end of next week.
Britain’s and France’s involvement--the Balfour Declaration, the Sykes-Picot Agreement--and those also of the US, the UN and the then Soviet Union at the time are well-documented and well-known. The USSR was initially a wholehearted supporter of Israel and rushed to recognize it in the hope that it would become a close ally. Well-documented and well-known too is Britain’s and France’s subsequent alliance with Israel which they saw as a strategic ally in their bid to the doomed effort to maintain their continued colonial presence in most of the Arab world. It was an alliance that saw France become the Israelis’ initial military backer, providing them with arms and planes and the means to go nuclear with the construction of the Dimona reactor; at its worst, it saw all three in military action together in 1956 in the hope of doing to Nasser what the Americans finally did to Saddam Hussein in 2004: topple him.
The past cannot be unmade. It is what happens now that is important. The Palestinians do not expect the British or the French to undo the great wrong they wrought all those years ago. The only reason there are expectations of the Americans, and resentment when they do not deliver, is that they have the power to force change, to end the oppression and bring a new Palestine into being.
As for Israel, it has never been more unsure of itself. It has lost so many of its friends by its oppressive policies, there is deep conflict between secularists and Jewish fundamentalists and a paralysis as to how to deal with the Palestinians and its neighbors. It resembles a society slowly coming apart at the seams. Sixty years on, it is a regime heading nowhere.
Arab News

Confusion Over Al-Qaeda Leader’s Arrest in Iraq
Iraqi police commandos captured the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq in a raid in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi officials said Thursday, in what could mark a significant blow to the insurgency in its last urban stronghold.
However, the US military on Friday said there were “no operational reports“ to confirm the capture of the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq as stated by Iraqi officials, adding the capture of another insurgent might have caused confusion, AFP reported.
Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed Al-Askari said the arrest of Abu Ayyub Al-Masri , also known as Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir, was reported by the Iraqi commander in Mosul, where insurgents have sought to establish a foothold after being widely uprooted from Baghdad and surrounding areas last year.

Sadrists Killed
Meanwhile, the US military on Friday said US soldiers killed six fighters, who attacked forces with shoulder fired rockets and small arms, in several clashes in Sadr City on Thursday.
Thousands of civilians already have fled their homes in Sadr City which is home to nearly 40 percent of Baghdad’s population.
Aid groups say some areas are desperately short of food and medicine after seven weeks of street battles and US strikes on civilians. In other news, a rocket attack on a coalition military base in Basra killed two civilian contractors Friday, while a retaliatory strike and separate attacks elsewhere in Iraq killed 23 others, officials said.

Sexual Abuse in British Embassy
Meanwhile, an influential committee of British MPs is investigating allegations of sexual harassment and abuse in the British Embassy in Baghdad. The Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee has written to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to ask for a full explanation of what happened at the embassy.
An Iraqi cleaner and two cooks have alleged that a culture of sexual harassment, abuse and bullying exists at the embassy, according to testimony taken by officials last June and seen by The Times. The cleaner said that a British contractor with KBR, the company hired to maintain the embassy’s premises, offered double her daily pay if she would stay the night with him. When she refused, she said, her pay was cut and she was later dismissed.
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SUNDAY, MAY 11
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SERBIA - Parliamentary and local elections.
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NIIGATA, Japan - G8 labor ministers meeting (till May 13).
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