Jimmy Carter describes how the separation wall, 80% of which Israel is building inside the occupied West Bank in contravention of international law, makes life terrible for the Palestinians who live in its destructive path. From Palestine: Peace not Apartheid:

The area between the segregation barrier and the Israeli border has been designated a closed military region for an indefinite period of time. Israeli directives state that every Palestinian over the age of twelve living in the closed area has to obtain a "permanent resident permit" from the civil administration to enable them to continue to live in their own homes. They are considered to be aliens, without the rights of Israeli citizens. To summarize: whatever territory Israel decides to confiscate will be on its side of the wall, but Israelis will still retain control of the Palestinians who will be on the other side of the barrier, enclosed between it and Israel's forces in the Jordan River valley. (pp. 192-3)

From CNN's Larry King Live, Nov. 28:

Larry King: Back to Mr. [Alan] Dershowitz on your book. He deals with the tone of your book. He says "it's obvious that Carter doesn't like Israel or Israelis. He lectured Golda Meir on Israel's secular nature, he admits he didn't like Menachem Begin. He has little good to say about any Israelis except those few who agree with him. He apparently got along swimmingly with secular Syrian mass murderer Hafiz al-Assad. He and his wife Rosalynn had a fine time fine with equally secular Yasser Arafat, a man with the blood of hundreds of Americans and Israelis on his hands."

From Radio HornAfrik, Mogadishu, in Somali, Dec. 8 (awkward translation as provided by BBC Monitoring):

Somalia: Demonstration against deployment of foreign troops held in Mogadishu

[Presenter] A demonstration condemning the UN Security Council's decision to deploy foreign troops in Somalia took place in Koonis Stadium in mogadishu today. Aweys Fodey has the details.

[Fodey] The demonstration attended by people estimated to be more than 3,000 strongly opposed the deployment of foreign troops in Somalia. The demonstrators shouted: Allahu akbar and We will not accept foreign troops.

From Reuters, Dec. 8:

Gunmen killed two security officers when they opened fire on a guard post outside a prison in Jidda, the Interior Ministry said. Residents said terror suspects were believed to be held at the prison. Al Arabiya television quoted a security official as saying that two suspects were arrested after a car chase. The kingdom said last week that it had detained 136 suspected militants, including a would-be suicide bomber. Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, the interior minister, said Monday that the militants, who included foreigners, were planning a series of suicide bombings and assassinations.

One question that needs to be asked, is how much of the Iraqi bloodbath is due to the "Salvador option" strategem that Newsweek claimed Negroponte wanted to employ to quell the Sunni insurgency, using Shia militias. From AP, Dec. 1:

Spy Chief Cites Perils in Iraq
National Intelligence Director John Negroponte says Iraq is far more precarious than much of Vietnam was when he served as a U.S. diplomat there in the 1960s.

The Israeli military brass is investigating whether human error or computer malfunction resulted in killing 19 Palestinians in their apartment block in Beit Hanoun, Gaza on Nov. 8. According to Ha'aretz, Nov. 9:

According to the IDF, the "normal" margin of error for an artillery shell under these conditions is about 200 meters, which is why IDF regulations for Gaza state that artillery targets must be at least 200 to 300 meters from civilian houses. But a 450-meter deviation would require only a three-degree deviation in the gun barrel, which is "undetectable by the human eye," said Brigadier General (reserves) Zvi Fogel, a former senior artillery officer.

Nervous Democrats are distancing themselves from Jimmy Carter's forthcoming Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, and urging him not to use the term to describe the continuing Israeli occupation and colonization of the Palestinian territories. It should be noted that Ha'aretz, Israel's most respected newspaper, wrote in an Sept. 13 editorial,"...the apartheid regime in the territories remains intact; millions of Palestinians are living without rights, freedom of movement or a livelihood, under the yoke of ongoing Israeli occupation, and in the future they will turn the Jews into a minority between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.[...]"

From Reuters, Oct. 25:

Berlin: IAF jets fire shots over German ship off coast of Lebanon
Two Israel Air Force warplanes and a German navy vessel have clashed off the Lebanese coast, the Defense Ministry in Berlin said on Wednesday without giving further details.