From the New York Times, April 30 (condensed):

At Least 18 Arrests Made in Tense Night of a Monthly Cycling Protest
Under tense circumstances, the monthly Critical Mass bicycle ride set out last night from multiple locations in Manhattan, in an attempt by the riders to thwart a police crackdown. The police did not supply arrest numbers last night, but a lawyer who works with the riders, Julia Cohen, said at least 18 were detained.

Here's a textbook case in how the reigning anti-Semitic propaganda system works, with the paradoxical complicity of certain powerful (and deluded) Jews. This propaganda system is all the more effective for being nearly universally unrecognized.

As we here at WW4 REPORT know, Israel is a client state of the American empire. In the following article in the well-known anti-Semitic conspirazoid publication The Forward, Ori Nir claims that the recent sacking of two AIPAC officials resulting from the Franklin affair threatens "Israeli efforts to secure swift American action against Iran's nuclear program." That kind of "wag-the-dog" theory is anti-Semitic. As WW4 REPORT editor Weinberg noted on this blog, it is obviously the US that is pushing Israel, its client state, to do its bidding:"Is Israel going to take the bait? Will the Israeli leadership ever realize that playing attack dog for US imperialism is utterly counter-productive to the longterm survival and security of their own state?"

The following release from Gush Shalom describes how Israeli forces attacked a joint Palestinian-Israeli non-violent demonstration against the separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bi'lin. The demonstration is notable for its size, and the fact that Palestinian Israeli MK's and some well-known Palestinians took part. For the second time, Israeli special forces dressed in mufti staged provocations from within the Palestinian side, throwing rocks at Israeli forces so that they could have a pretext to open fire. Previously Ha'aretz' Amira Hass noted a Border Police unit in mufti did the same thing at a demo in the village of Beit Surik.

Jeffrey Blankfort, relentless critic of the Israel lobby and what he sees as the failure of the left to properly engage the question, has written a long-awaited critique of Noam Chomsky's views. Blankfort writes:

The 2005 edition of Left Curve has been published and most of it is now available online including my latest article: "Damage Control: Noam Chomsky and the Israel-Palestine Conflict." I am aware that its contents will be controversial but I hope it will stimulate further critical analysis of Chomsky's writings and statements on that issue, an analysis that, given his status among progressive thinkers and activists, is long overdue.

It is a looming nightmare for Washington, but Mexico may be the next to join the fast-growing loose alliance of left-populist governments in Latin America, if Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the left-opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) becomes president next year, joining Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Lula da Silva of Brazil, Nestor Kirchner of Argentina and Tabare Vazquez of Uruguay. Not surprisingly, the power structure around President Vicente Fox's ruling right-wing National Action Party (PAN) has moved to block Lopez Obrador's candidacy through legalistic prestidigitation. But the PAN regime now appears to be backing down in the face of sustained and determined protest. From Reuters:

This year's North American winner of the Goldman Prize, awarded annually to the most courageous environmental activists on five contients, is Isidro Baldenegro of Chihuahua, Mexico, a Tarahumara Indian who has long defended the forests of the Sierra Tarahumara against the chain-saws of the timber mafia. As reported in WW4 Report 90, Baldenegro was imprisoned in 2003 on trumped-up terrorism charges, and released following an international campaign.

Taxi driver, pregnant passenger, pedestrian in critical condition

April 26, 2005, 12:31 PM EDT

NEW YORK -- A taxi driver whose out-of-control cab set off a chain reaction of crashes at Times Square remained in critical condition on Tuesday, as did his pregnant passenger and a pedestrian.

The driver, Syed M. Zia, 54, of Corona, Queens, was driving along 42nd Street near the Port Authority Bus Terminal at around 10:30 a.m. Monday when he collided at the intersection of Eighth Avenue with a station wagon, which then hit a pedestrian, authorities said.

The cab then went around the station wagon, striking the pedestrian a second time, then sped off, and hit a minibus, then a Chevrolet Impala, and finally hit a row of taxicabs, the last of which stopped near Ninth Avenue, police said.