Our September issue featured the story "The Israel Lobby & Global Hegemony: Revisited" by WW4R editor Bill Weinberg, arguing that "Israel replicates the historical cycles of Jewish scapegoating by serving as imperialism's proxy." Refuting the thesis of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their new book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, Weinberg contends that the Iraq adventure is fundamentally a war for control of oil. "Yet even the anti-war left increasingly chases after shadows like the supposed Zionist conspiracy, abandoning principles of anti-imperialism," Weinberg writes. He accuses Mearsheimer and Walt of belonging to a tradition of "nativist xenophobia," and warns that the eventual backlash against Israel could come in "an orgy of anti-Jewish hatred which will only play into the hands of Israel's advocates of 'transfer,' finishing off the work of ethnic cleansing that began in 1948." Our September Exit Poll was: "Mearsheimer and Walt: Heroic truth-tellers or right-wing conspiracy theorists?" We received the following responses:

The following was reported by Amit Cohen in the center-right Israeli paper Ma'ariv in Hebrew on Sept. 19:

Abu Mazen instructed his general "Slaughter them"
The clip [shown at the Ma'ariv link] apparently shows a meeting in Abu-Mazen's [President Mahmoud Abbas] bureau in Gaza in which members of the preventive security force identified with [Fatah strongman in Gaza] Muhammad Dahlan participated. When meeting the older gentleman dressed in black uniform, Abu Mazen asks him "are you the head of the preventive security force." When the answer is in the affirmative Abu-Mazen says one word, "slaughter [them]"

Part of a statement from al-Awda and other groups, online at NYC Indymedia, Sept. 13:

We believe that it is critical, necessary and essential that the building of the antiwar movement in the United States take place in a manner that emphasizes political unity and political clarity - political unity that links communities and movements in common struggle against US imperialism and political clarity that defines that struggle and its component parts, placing the struggle of the Iraqi and Palestinian people for national liberation at the center of our demands, just as it is in the center of the crosshairs of imperialism and in the center of resistance; as well as the struggles of the people of the Philippines, Colombia, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Cuba, the Sudan, Haiti, Lebanon, Somalia and everywhere else in the world where imperialism is waging war and occupation and people are resisting, organizing and building. Similarly, the struggles of Black, Chicano, Latino, Asian, Arab, Native and other oppressed nations and communities within the US must be central to our work as an antiwar movement that has real meaning for those most directly affected here; for example, the struggle of Katrina victims to rebuild their communities in the face of racism and oppression, and the struggle of undocumented and other immigrants for full equality, legalization, and workers' rights.

Shaker al-Abssi, leader of the al-Qaeda franchise Fatah al-Islam, was reported killed in the Lebanese Army's assault on a the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp Sept. 2. Lebanese officials said they were awaiting the result of a DNA test before officially issuing a statement. Some 35 members of the Islamist group were also reported killed in the assault. More than 300 people are believed to have died since the army's three-month siege on the refugee camp began. (RIA-Novosti, Sept. 3)

From Amnesty International, Aug. 23:

Evictions crisis deepens for Palestinian villagers
The Israeli army has increased efforts to force Palestinian villagers out of the Jordan Valley region of the occupied West Bank, by destroying villagers’ homes and restricting their movement and access to water. Humsa and Hadidiya, two hamlets in the north of the Jordan Valley, are among the targeted villages. More than 100 villagers, most of them children, risk losing their homes and being forced out of the area.

Some 5,000 Israelis participated in a march around Jerusalem's Temple Mount July 15, in a monthly event led by Orthodox Jewish groups dedicated to the rebuilding of a Jewish temple on the site. The march usually draws far smaller numbers, but this one was held just one week before the Ninth of Av, the Hebrew calendar date when the First and Second Temples were destroyed by the Babylonians and Romans, respectively, a day of national mourning and fasting in Israel. (Israel Today, July 16) Meanwhile, in a bizarre reversal of recent controversies surrounding the Temple Mount, Jews protested an archaeological dig at the site approved by the Islamic overseers of the Haram al-Sharif. From the Jerusalem Post, July 15:

From Israel Indymedia (via Kibush), June 25:

Tonight we, a group of autonomous women activists, have protested against the Akerstein Company and its support for the Separation Wall. We have acted at the Akerstein sales center at Herzlia Pituach- we have inserted fast-drying glue into the locks of several entrance doors, sprayed red stains on the outer walls and hanged on the walls signs with the text reproduced below. For more details you can contact us via mail: XAutonomousX@gmail.com

Israeli police detained an Orthodox Jewish man carrying a small homemade bomb in Jerusalem June 21, as thousands marched in support of gay rights in defiance of religious protesters. Some 2,000 Israeli gays marched in the event by police estimates, while behind police barriers Orthodox protesters in traditional black and white garb intoned prayers against the march. One man approached the marchers yelling: "Filth! Get out of Jerusalem!" In 2005, an Orthodox Jew stabbed and wounded three marchers and fears of violence caused a march to be cancelled last year. (Reuters, June 21)