On Aug. 22, hundreds of Chilean students clashed with police in the capital, Santiago, and in the northern city of Copiapo. In Santiago, at least 1,000 students marched toward the La Moneda presidential palace and the Education Ministry building; police used water cannons to break up the march, and arrested 114 students and nine adults. In Copiapo, police arrested 98 protesters. (La Jornada, Mexico, Aug. 23 from AFP; Miami Herald, Aug. 26 from AP)

On Sept. 2, about 5,000 immigrant-rights supporters marched through downtown Los Angeles to City Hall as part of a series of events planned through Labor Day weekend. The march was organized by the March 25th Coalition. (CBS2.com, Los Angeles, Sept. 2)

Once again, the idiot left delivers up propaganda ammo to the reactionary New York Sun on a silver platter. Are these claims true? If they aren't, Al-Awda should sue. If they are, Al-Awda should be generally repudiated by the American left. But they won't be. The left seems incapable of grasping that incessant intonation of the "anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism" mantra is utterly meaningless if we fail to oppose real anti-Semitism. From the Aug. 22 edition (just brought to our attention, emphasis added):

From London Class War, July 26:

HezBollocks and IsRabies:
A Class War Federation statement on the War in Lebanon
Class War is appalled at the carnage that is occurring in the Middle East. We are also disappointed but not surprised at what is being said about it, especially by some "progressive" organisations.

Text of a report in Arabic from the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat, Aug. 31:

Syrian group threatens to copy Hezbollah's action, abduct Israeli soldiers

A secret organization in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights has threatened to abduct Israeli soldiers to swap them with Syrian prisoners in Israeli jails "if four of them were not released unconditionally." Midhat Salih, a former deputy for the Golan, told Al-Hayat yesterday that this organization's members "are a group of young men who want to copy Hezbollah's experience" in the heights that Israel has been occupying since 1967.

Media accounts have largely foused on Iran as the supplier of Hezbollah's missiles, with Syria merely serving as a transshipment point. But Israeli intelligence, mostly relying on forensic work at the impact sites, has reportedly determined that many of Hezbollah's rockets that hit Israel in the recent war were actually Syrian-made, or Russian missiles that had been supplied to Syria. (LAT, Aug. 31 via Assyrian International News Agency) The United Nations is also said to have reports that Syria continues to permit arms to cross its border into Lebanon, and Secretary General Kofi Annan plans to demand an end to the illegal traffic when he meets tomorrow with President Bashar al-Assad. (NYT, Aug. 31) Syria, which denies arming Hezbollah , has rejected the deployment of UN troops along its border with Lebanon. (AFP, Aug. 31)

From DPA, Aug. 31:

Damascus- Around 595 Druse clergymen from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights crossed into Syria Thursday for an annual pilgrimage to the holy Habil shrine at Zabadanto, a Red Cross official in Damascus said. The clerics crossed the Israeli-Syrian border at the Quneitra checkpoint, around 65 kilometres south of Damascus, in two groups and walked for about 300 metres while elderly men were transported by by UN buses, which was broadcast live on local television.

From the AP, Aug. 30:

DAMASCUS, Syria — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received a hero's welcome in Syria, where he said Wednesday that the two countries will "build a new world" free of U.S. domination and vowed to one day "dig the grave of U.S. imperialism."