Ha'aretz, July 7:

Chavez: U.S. support for Israel will end in a 'Holocaust'

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday that U.S. backing of Israel is responsible for flaming tensions in the Middle East and putting the world on course toward another "Holocaust."

Text of report by Dubai-based news channel Al-Arabiya TV on 14 July, as translated by BBC Monitoring:

At a time when the Jordanian monarch, King Abdallah II, left for Cairo to meet Egyptian President Husni Mubarak in an effort to end the current military escalation, the Jordanian cities witnessed mass demonstrations in solidarity with the Lebanese people and in protest against the Israeli aggression.

Tom Regan of the Christian Science Monitor provides this July 14 round-up of the fast-escalating Israel-Lebanon crisis and international reactions. We especially love Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon's invocation (yet again) of US atrocities in Afghanistan, and Russia's in Chechnya—as if one atrocity justifies another. It does point up, however, that Washington's criticisms of Israel (lukewarm as they are—in fact, Condoleezza Rice's "sharp" words are an implicit endorsement of Israeli aggression) are thoroughly hypocritical.

We don't know when lefties started cheering on CIA agents. But it's no weirder than the White House blowing their cover. We applaud Valerie Plame for not going along with the journalist-bashing that has infected right and left alike in this bizarre affair. The administration used journalists as mouthpieces for leaks, and then hung them out to dry—using them once again, as scapegoats. And supposed progressives like Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) played along. Compared to them, (ex-)secret agent Plame is taking the high road. From Editor & Publisher, July 14:

Dear Readers:

We hate to admit that WW4 REPORT is facing an existential crisis, but circumstances have forced this conclusion. We depend on the success of our twice-yearly fundraising efforts to keep publishing, and $1,000 is about the minimum that constitutes success. Thus far, we have been able to meet that goal in pervious fund drives. However, since we published our fund appeal at the beginning of July, we have received only seven donations, totalling $175.

This is the surest sign yet that the Bush boys have been humbled. In addition to the unfavorable Supreme Court decision on the Guantanamo detainees, this July 11 AP clip notes some of the political considerations behind the decision to honor the Geneva Conventions:

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration said Tuesday that all detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in U.S. military custody everywhere are entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions.

Joining the estimated 500,000 who took to the streets of Mexico City July 8 to demand a recount in the contested presidential elections is, of all places, the Financial Times. The upper-crust British daily supported the officially victorious conservative candidate Felip Calderon, but in an editorial noting populist challenger Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's demands for a total recount, opined: "That is exactly what Mexico's electoral authorities should do." (La Jornada, July 11; FT, July 10)

Marking their completion of 10 ten years in prison, the two accused Zapatista collaborators being held at the state prison in Tacotalpa, Tabasco, began an indefinite hunger strike July 10 to demand their liberation. The prisoners, Angel Concepcion Perez Vazquez and Francisco Perez Gutierrez, say they are also demanding the release of the peasant protesters detained in May at the village of San Salvador Atenco in Mexico state, and all political prisoners in the nation of Mexico. A group of Chol Maya campesinos have also launched a permanent vigil outside the prison in support of the prisoners. Release of the Zapatista political prisoners is a key demand of the Zapatista National Liberation Army. (La Jornada, July 11)