Middle East

Israeli soldiers arrested two Palestinians and five Internationals during an anti-wall nonviolent protest on Wednesday morning in Al-Walajeh village near the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem. On Tuesday, Israeli army bulldozers started to uproot trees owned by local farmers to make way for the new section of the wall that Israel has been building for three year there.

By Bernhard Schell

As September draws closer and the Palestine Authority prepares to achieve statehood as well as full membership of the United Nations, a new report is calling upon Fatah and Hamas rivals to take necessary steps to implement the Egyptian sponsored reconciliation agreement and install a Palestinian leadership able to reach and carry out peace with Israel.

The Egyptian Armed Forces Supreme Council raised the alert against what it considered an attempt to bring about a breaking-off between the people and the army after clashes with demonstrators on Friday. The military junta asked the population to be prudent, to neutralize such attempts and not to be manipulated by a “suspicious plan” to destroy Egypt’s stability.

The price of the U.S-led invasion and occupation of Iraq since 2003 —which is paradoxically called Operation Freedom for Iraq— is usually calculated in dollars. What about its human cost?

The following are just some facts about Iraqi youth and children according to UN reports:

The Water Sanitation and Hygiene Group (EWASH) issued a report saying that even though Israel announced last year that it will ease the blockade; Gaza Strip residents still don’t have clean water running from their taps as up to 95% of water for domestic supply in the Gaza Strip is still below the minimum WHO standard for drinking water and unfit for consumption.

Echoing the recent protests in Egypt and Spain, it is the turn of Israeli youth to take to the streets and start camping to draw attention to the excessive cost of rents in Tel Aviv and other major population centres of the territory. An emergency session of the Israeli Cabinet is convened to try to deal with the situation.

The Israeli government is under heat now also from citizens who are normally indifferent to its immoral conduct. After a successful boycott of cottage cheese that forced the producer to put down the prices, hundreds of Israelis are now taking to the streets in protest of lack of affordable housing, building a tent town on Tel Aviv’s fashionable Rothschild Boulevard.

Politicians, pushed by the “ward lords”–the military, spend over 90 billion dollars a year, from taxpayer’s pockets, on nuclear weapons. This figure amounts to the UN budget for 45 years, and to 3/4 of the total annual sum spent on development aid. The U.S. alone spends over 50 billion dollars annually–enough to meet the Millennium Development Goals on poverty alleviation.

The Canadian ship the Tahrir pulled out of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Two over the weekend, as only French ship the Dignity El Karameh and the Swedish-Norwegian-Greek ship Juliano remain to break the blockade of Gaza. The Tahrir finally gives up after Greek Port officials ask the activists to provide new documents that had never previously been mentioned nor required.

Protests continue in Tahrir Square six months after Mubarak resigned on the famous Day of Departure and while much of the world’s media is looking elsewhere for news. More demands are raised by protesters, yet the family atmosphere in Tahrir Square is causing difficulties for the military who fear using tear gas in such an environment.