West Bank wall still defies World CourtFour years after the ruling of the International Court of Justice at The Hague was handed down, Israel's West Bank "separation barrier"—derided by critics as the "apartheid wall"—has not been moved or dismantled in any of the sections that were held to be in breach international law, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said in a press release July 9. B'Tselem reiterated its call for the Israeli government to dismantle every section of the barrier that penetrates the West Bank, cancel the travel permits regime that is part of the barrier project, and compensate the Palestinians who were harmed as a result of the barrier's construction.

We aren't sure that the optimism in his closing assessment of Obama's AIPAC speech is warranted. But this June 13 piece by Bernard Avishai in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz says much about the dilemmas the candidate faces. The piece is ostensibly about how Obama is perceived by the ruling elites within Israel, but much of it also applies to "the Lobby," the "neocons," and Israel's stateside amen chorus generally:

There were jubilant scenes at a Belfast court June 11 as six Derry anti-war protesters were unanimously acquitted of destroying property belonging to multinational arms company Raytheon. The six, including 65-year-old author and journalist Eamonn McCann, were each cleared of causing criminal damage to the building and offices of Raytheon and an employee's car at an August 9, 2006 protest over Israel's bombardment of Lebanon.

Israeli forces again violently broke up a peaceful demonstration against the construction of the separation wall in the West Bank village of Nil'in June 8, shooting a foreign cameraman with a rubber-coated bullet. Three protesters were injured and three arrested, including a foreign solidarity activist. The coordinator of Ni'lin's popular committee against the wall, Salah Al-Khawaja, said village farmers lay on the ground to stop Israeli bulldozers from digging up the fields and erecting the wall section planned there. According to Al-Khawaja, the farmers succeeded in stopping the work for one hour. He said bulldozers have uprooted 90 trees in the village in just three days. (Ma'an News Agency, June 8)

From the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, June 5:

On May 29, 2008, three Palestinian Left organizations, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Palestine People's Party, announced the inception of a Palestinian Left Front.

Israeli forces raided the village of Ni'lin, west of Ramallah, early May 29, storming houses and detaining four men. The mayor of Ni'lin, Aiman Nafe, said the incursion and detentions aimed to suppress activities scheduled for that day against construction of the separation wall through the southern lands of the village.

Breaking ranks with the loopiness of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his ilk, Bassem Naeem, health and information minister in the Hamas-led Palestinian administration in Gaza, explicitly acknowledges the historical fact of the Holocaust—while calling out Israel's manipulation thereof. From The Guardian's Comment is Free, May 12:

Lebanon's polarized politicians appealed to Qatar May 17 to come up with a proposal on the question of Hezbollah's weapons during Arab-brokered talks in Doha. 65 people were killed in nearly a week of fighting, in which Hezbollah and its allies temporarily took control of a large part of west Beirut. (AFP, May 17) BBC's Jim Muir reports from Beirut May 16 that the violence already reached the level of civil war: