The following ran in the New York Jewish Week. It marks a post-M&W pendulum swing, in which more centrist elements of the Israel lobby are speaking out with alarm over what more hard-line elements -- The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal op-ed page, and also the American Jewish Congress (AJC) in a full-page NYT ad -- have been calling for.

UPDATE: May 8 a reader in Buffalo sent us the following:

No one in Buffalo knows about this. We thought Hand was dead. Last time he tried this thdere were three Nazis and over 5,000 counterprotestors. He fled town immediately after that, declaring Buffalo a lost cause, and moved to the Carolinas. This timing is questionable. It's right around the time of the big international peace fest in Buffalo with Cindy Sheehan and all.

The following April 30 article should thus be taken with that grain of salt —

Yuck. From an April 26 press release of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group:

Sweden and other Scandanavian countries are the harshest European critics of Israeli behavior. One of the largest regions in Norway, Trondheim, has banned the sale of Israeli goods as well. Haaretz, April 28:

Israel summons Swedish envoy over NATO drill, visas for Hamas
Foreign Ministry Director-General Ron Prosor on Thursday summoned Swedish Ambassador to Israel Robert Rydberg to clarify Stockholm`s decision to withdraw from a NATO international air force exercise because of Israel`s participation, as well as reports that the Scandinavian country was planning to grant visas to two Hamas representatives.

One civilian was killed and several injured (both police and civilians) in a clash that erupted when police opened fire on protesters blocking a road in Dagestan's Dokuzpari district April 25. The protesters, who were demanding the dismisal of a local prosecutor accused of corruption, responded by hurling stones. (ITAR-TASS, April 26)

The final capitulation of King Gyanendra to a militant pro-democracy movement that has made common cause with the Maoist guerillas is closely followed by The Rising Nepal website. The king, who had seized dictatorial absolute power last February, reached an agreement with the opposition Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) and on April 27 appointed Nepali Congress Party president Girija Prasad Koirala as prime minister. The following day, Parliament met for the first time since it was suspended in last year's royal coup. SPA leaders called on the citizenry to continue to act as the vanguard of the hard-earned democratic restoration at a mammoth mass meeting at Kathmandu's amphitheatre, and urged participation in an upcoming constituent assembly. The guerillas of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) have announced a three-month unilateral cease-fire. CPN(M) Chairman Prachanda said his army will halt all offensive military operations and work towards serving the people in its zones of control.

From the Village Voice, April 28:

No Justice, No Work
Immigrants tap May Day's radical roots

by Sarah Ferguson

It has been called "A Day Without Immigrants."
"The Great American Boycott."

And down in Mexico: "Nothing Gringo."

But whatever you call it, the range of actions planned for May 1 to protest House bill HR 4437 and other punitive immigration measures circulating in Congress shows just how diverse and energized this movement to defend the rights foreign-born laborers has become.

Another (very tentative) glimmer of hope in the battle for your privacy rights. From AP, April 25:

WASHINGTON -- An appeals court on Tuesday returned the criminal case against an Islamic scholar to a trial judge to determine whether the Bush administration's domestic spying program was used to gather evidence against him.

As we (and others) have argued, one of the aims of Operation Iraqi Freedom was likely to jack up the price of oil, giving a salutary boost to industry expansion plans, facilitating Western corporate colonization of the Caspian Basin (beating the Russians to the punch) as well as the opening of the purely ancillary ANWR. But here is a sure sign that things are getting out of control, even from Bush's hubristic perspective. If the price of oil breaks $100/barrel, it could threaten already-waning public enthusiasm for the Republicans and their wars. Bush had to open the Strategic Reserves after Katrina; analysts may now "welcome" his decision to stop pumping into them to free up more oil for the market and ease prices, but it strikes us a reckless gamble--which could backfire with the next escalation in the Middle East (say, US military action against Iran...) From the New York Times, April 25: