http://mondoweiss.net/2010/04/amid-heckling-bbc-pulls-plug-on-jerusalem-quartet.html

Irish Trade Union solidarity with Palestine
On Friday there was one of the most significant events yet in Palestinian solidarity work in Ireland. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions held a conference on Palestine/Israel and on how to build solidarity links. It was reported and attacked in the media and, in a nutshell, it was a very successful conference – one that will lay the basis of future union campaigning on Palestine. The purpose of the conference was to discuss the implementation of the 2009 ICTU resolution which called for a comprehensive boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2010/04/irish-trade-union-solidarity-with.html

The Berlin Conference this year on 7-8 May will be the biggest across Europe. It's organized by the General Secretariat of Palestinians in Europe Conference, Palestinian Return Centre and the host which will be the Palestinian assembly in Germany -- Palestinian presence in Germany is the biggest and most central out of Palestine. The number of Palestinians in Germany nears to 100,000; a great majority of them came from the refugee camps in the Arab countries. More specifically, they came from Lebanon as the civil war erupted some years ago. 25,000 of them reside in the capital, Berlin. 

One child and one teenager were injured on Sunday evening when Israeli forces stormed a prisoner solidarity event in Beit Ummar, north of the West Bank city of Hebron. Spokesman for the Palestine Solidarity Project Mohammad Ayyad Awad said soldiers surrounded the courtyard of the local Zahret Al-Mada'en school, and fired live bullets and tear-gas canisters, injuring Yezan Imad As-Sleibi, 17, sustaining a gunshot wound to the head, receiving treatment at the scene. Awad added that 15-year-old Sabri Ibrahim Awad sustained bruising after being beaten by Israel soldiers, and was transferred to hospital for treatment. The festival was organized by the Popular Committee Against the Wall and the Palestine Solidarity Project in solidarity with Palestinian detainees on Prisoners Day. 
Israeli forces reportedly surrounded the town of Beit Ummar on Saturday, closing off all entrances into the town and fired tear-gas canisters near the local mosque, according to the Palestine Solidarity Project. Spokesman for the PSP Muhammad Ayyad Awad said Israeli forces surrounded the town and stopped all cars, checking owners' identity cards, adding that Israeli and international solidarity groups were barred from entering Beit Ummar to participate in the week march against the wall. 
Israeli citizens living on an illegal West Bank settlement reportedly stormed a home, causing structural damage, in the Burin village south of Nablus on Saturday. Palestinian Authority civil defense sources said seven settlers, two of them armed, demolished the stairs and building materials of Ibrahim Adel Eid's home, which was still under construction. 
17 Apr - On Wednesday March 31st, Israeli Special Police Forces entered the village of Tuba in the South Hebron Hills and ransacked two homes. Two white vehicles drove into the village at around 10am. A third vehicle, a van, was parked outside the village. Ommar Abu Jundia, a Tuba resident, came out of his house and was searched by the forces who had by now disembarked and approached on foot ... The Special Police Forces first claimed to be looking for two goats reported missing by settlers from the nearby outpost of Havat Ma’on. “It was a strange way to look for goats”, says Abu Jundia, remarking on the fact that the soldiers confined their search to the inside of the houses of village residents.
The Israeli army announced Saturday that the West Bank will be sealed off from midnight until Tuesday, ahead of Israeli Independence Day ... Israeli authorities imposed two total lockdowns of the West Bank during March, one coinciding with the Jewish Passover holiday, sparking demonstrations in Bethlehem over restrictions placed on Palestinians wishing to perform religious rights over Easter in East Jerusalem.
The universally condemned Israeli military orders revealed on Sunday by Israeli rights group B'Tselem, went into effect on Tuesday, but have yet to be used in the deportation of any Palestinian in the West Bank ... PA Minister of Civil Affairs Hussein As-Sheikh said Tuesday that the new order "is not applicable to Gazans living or working in the West Bank; it is related to those who obtain a visa to visit Israel, who then won't be allowed to enter the West Bank."  According to the Gaza-based Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, however, the order is directed at "what appear to be specific groups, which include Palestinians from Gaza and their offspring as well as foreign citizens who support the rights of the Palestinian people and stay in the West Bank."
...Little is known about the long-term effect of detention on Palestinian teenagers. But with over 760,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel since 1967, experts say detention is a source of trans-generational trauma in Palestine; one that is passed on and bound to repeat so long as the occupation persists. Prisoners tend to have symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome, experts say, and they warn that young detainees suffer more than adults from this experience, even if they are not tortured. Child prisoners account for almost 20 percent of patients at Palestine's only torture victim centre.
A joint news conference held by Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayyeh and Fatah official Salah Abu Khalta on Saturday called for immediate action to resolve inter-factional rivalry. "Its time to remove the nightmare of hatred [between the two factions] because the national cause is violated every day," Al-Hayyeh said, during a sit-in in Gaza City in front of the Red Cross headquarters marking Prisoners Day. 
Yesterday it was reported that the South African Zionist Federation and other religious bodies had participated in the decision to bar Richard Goldstone from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah. The JTA said that Goldstone was "pressured"into agreeing not to attend ... [Goldstone] is reported to have said: "In the interests of my grandson, I've decided not to attend the ceremony at the synagogue." This decision was so shocking that the South African religious leadership is now backing away from any responsibility in the matter. Thus Zev Krengel, national chairman of the Jewish Board of Deputies. Notice the prevarication near the end of the statement

Africans living in Israel for more than eight years demand another year to prepare for their departure to other countries. 'We can't just get up and leave in one day,' protestor says outside PM's Residence
Report: Egypt blows up Gaza smuggling tunnel
Palestinian sources said on Saturday that Egyptian forces had blown up a smuggling tunnel beneath the border with the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported. There were no casualties, said the sources, who also reported the discovery by Egypt of a second tunnel, used to smuggle vehicles. Egypt has now shut down six vehicle-smuggling tunnels, which cost an estimated half a million dollars each to dig, Israel Radio said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1163656.html

Egypt discovers 10 smuggling tunnels on Gaza border
Egyptian forces discovered 10 smuggling tunnels on Sunday along the Gaza-Egypt border in the Salah Ad-Din neighborhood of Egyptian Rafah. Security sources told Ma'an that state detectives stormed eight homes along the border area, finding tunnel exits inside their homes. Large quantities of iron construction bars, water pumps, and spare car parts were confiscated in the various tunnels, which are slated for closure, police said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=277369
Yehuda Amichai, the fine Israeli poet, once observed of Jerusalem that it is “the only city in the world where the right to vote is granted even to the dead.” The Middle East holds pride of place when it comes to morbid retrospection ... Before moving from Europe to the United States, I spent several years in places obsessed by the past — the Balkans and Berlin. During the Yugoslav wars, lives and landscape were devastated by the abuse of memory.I learned a few things over the corpses and plum brandy. The first was how blinding victimhood can be: the historical victim — Serb in this case — cannot see when he becomes the chief perpetrator of violence. The second was that nothing forges national identity — Bosnian Muslim in this case — faster than persecution. The third was that arguments about who came first to the land or the “reality” of national identity can never be settled: they are the stuff of myth. The only relevant issue is whether or not to set the arguments aside in the interests of a better future.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/opinion/16iht-edcohen.html

Analysis / Opinion

The decline of Israel's left / Catrina Stewart
Nearly 30 years ago, 400,000 Israelis marched in protest over the injustices of the 1982 war in Lebanon. Where are today’s progressives? ... Adam Keller was one of the Israeli activists at Arafat's house that night. In the years since, he has pursued peace tirelessly through the group Gush Shalom ("Peace Bloc"), but now he is running low on optimism. "The moderate, mainstream left is broken," he says, in his tiny sitting room in southern Tel Aviv. These days, Gush Shalom cannot even scrape together the funds to print the newsletter it used to publish each month. "Israeli public opinion has given up on peace," he tells me. If there is hope for Israel's liberals, it lies in East Jerusalem.
http://www.newstatesman.com/middle-east/2010/04/israel-peace-palestinian

...If Barack Obama and his assistants intend to start a serious peace effort, as it now seems, that is the main thing they have to take into consideration: before addressing the hard problems of peacemaking, the profound lack of belief on both sides has to be overcome. Either side is completely convinced that the other side does not want peace and will bring a dozen proofs from real life. This lack of belief is the product of 120 years of the conflict, an endless chain of violence, wars and crises, for which each side blames the other ... This lack of belief is also somehow comfortable. When there is no chance, there is no need to do anything.

The State of Israel, and all the states of the world, appear and disappear. The State of Israel, clearly, will disappear in one hundred, three-hundred, five-hundred years. But I suppose that the Jewish people will exist as long as the Jewish religion exists, perhaps for thousands more years. The existence of this state is of no importance for that of the Jewish people…. Jews throughout the world can live quite well without it. 
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/04/rabkin-we-cannot-have-a-rational-approach-to-the-peace-process-
till-we-decouple-the-fate-of-israel-from-the-jewish-future.html

Hasbara or Za'bara / Salman Abu Sitta
...Nobody had to create so many myths and falsehoods in their endeavours more than the Zionists ... Take the slogan: “Palestine is a land without people”. It was terra nullius, they say.  Of course, Zionists knew that people lived there and built over 1000 towns and villages, most are 2000 years old, according to Eusebius the Bishop of Caesarea (313 AD) who recorded them.  Yet Zionists submitted a map to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, showing Palestine as ‘a grazing land for nomads’.They presented this map to the colonial powers, particularly the British and the French.  The irony of course is that the British had finished their voluminous survey of Palestine, 40 years earlier, in 10 volumes, listing 12,000 historical sites including towns and villages ... What then is the meaning of terra nullius?  It does not mean (to them) an empty land.  It means that those who live there do not matter, they are worthless.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/2010/04/hasbara-or-zabara.html

Interview with Richard Becker, author of Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire
His book is an introduction to and overview of the situation, including its history, and shatters a number of myths
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71a7pk2Pl6w

Interview with Carlos Latuff: I don't trade ideology for money
(TEHRAN / RIO DE JANEIRO) - The hero of “freedom of speech”, boycotted by the corporate, mainstream media that are irresistible against the astringent truth: this is the most precise and accurate introduction which I can present about Carlos Latuff ... Latuff has drawn numerous cartoons which depict the pains of oppressed nations around the world; from the Palestinians being suffocated under the Israeli occupation to the Iranians receiving the spates of psychological operation co-manufactured by the White House and Tel Aviv.
http://intifada-palestine.com/2010/04/interview-with-carlos-latuff-i-dont-trade-ideology-for-money/

Book Review: 4 generations of a Palestinian refugee family: Mornings in Jenin
By Susan Abulhawa, reviewed by Maureen Corrigan. "Forty generations with their imprinted memories, secrets, and scandals. All carried away by the notion of entitlement of another people, who would settle in the vacancy and proclaim it all - all that was left in the way of architecture, orchards, wells, flowers, and charm - all of it as the heritage of Jewish foreigners arriving from Europe, Russia, the United States, and other corners of the globe."
Melodramatic? Certainly. Polemical? Absolutely. But, Mornings in Jenin is also a terrifically affecting novel, thanks to Abulhawa's elegance as a writer. It's a novel to savor - and to second-guess.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/entertainment/books/20100418_4_
generations_of_Palestinian_refugee_family.html

Iraq

Saturday: 3 Iraqis killed, 6 wounded
Excerpt: At least three Iraqis were killed and six were wounded in light violence. Also, there are reports that Iranian intelligence officers are in Iraq intimidating former Iranians now living at Camp Ashraf. In Baghdad, five people were wounded when a bomb blew up in Saidiya neighborhood. Police in Amiriya killed a gunman who opened fire on them.
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2010/04/17/saturday-3-iraqis-killed-6-wounded/

Sunday: 6 Iraqis, 1 US soldier killed,  Iraqis wounded
Excerpt: At least six Iraqis were killed and seven more were wounded in a second day of unusually light violence. Meanwhile, one U.S. soldier was killed and three more were wounded in what is being treated as a non-hostile helicopter crash. Also, Gen. Ray Odierno said in a television interview that the U.S. drawdown is on track; however, there are signs that a full withdrawal could spell more sectarian violence.
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2010/04/18/sunday-1-us-soldier-6-iraqis-killed-7-iraqis-wounded/

Al Jazeera video: Iraq's Shia consider new political alliance

Iraq's Shia parties are putting aside their differences to ally in the next parliament, giving them the majority they need to form a government. Kurdish parties have said they will join the Shia parties if they unite, meaning Iraq's political landscape could once again be dominated by a Shia-Kurd alliance; an outcome that will dissapoint many Sunnis who had hoped this election would bring change. Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reports from Baghdad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQIMJssPS6c&feature=youtube_gdata

Iraqi tribes warn of looming danger
Baghdad // Leaders of the tribal movement that helped beat back al Qa’eda in Iraq have warned that security gains are in danger of unraveling, after a string of revenge attacks in which scores of their members are believed to have been killed.
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100418/FOREIGN/704179852/1011

Al Jazeera video: Inside Iraq - Iraq, a satellite of Iran?
Iran maintains that its positive influence in Iraq is mistaken as interference but when Iraqi politicians met in Tehran to discuss the formation of a new government, Iran's power was unmistakable. Inside Iraq discusses Iran's influence in Iraq.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaDKxPkjejs&feature=youtube_gdata

Violence highlights fear of Iraq security forces taking over after US leaves
Radwaniyah, Iraq -- Raw welts and purple bruises run down the backs of dozens of Sunni Muslim men in a small village west of Baghdad -- evidence, local residents say, of abuse by the Iraqi army that threatens to widen a sectarian rift.The wounds came from beatings administered last month by soldiers from the predominantly Shiite force charged with protecting the Sunni community here, villagers said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/17/
AR2010041702704.html?wprss=rss_world/mideast

Iraq's Maliki makes case for holding on to post
In an interview, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki says he's the best person to continue his work of sectarian reconciliation, and vows to accommodate his main rival if he forms the new government.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-maliki18-2010apr18,0,1961480.story

Iraq to launch third bid round for gas fields: MEES
DUBAI (AFP) – Iraq plans to launch a third bid round to develop three non-associated natural gas fields, the Middle East Economic Survey newsletter quoted Iraqi officials as saying ... Combined, the three gas fields have over 7.5 trillion cubic feet (210 billion cubic metres) of proven free gas reserves.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100417/wl_mideast_afp/iraqenergygas

Howling wind: the unrepented genocide / Chris Floyd
...by the same scientific measurement tools used by the U.S. and UK governments to determine the extent of mass slaughters in Rwanda, Darfur and other places around the world, the war of aggression launched by those two governments against Iraq in 2003 has by now resulted in the death of more than one million Iraqis. This, from a war launched unilaterally by the Anglo-American alliance without UN sanction, against a nation that had not attacked them, had not threatened to attack them, was not capable of attacking them
http://uruknet.info/index.php?p=m65188&hd=&size=1&l=e

Lebanon

Israeli army reportedly fires flare bombs over Lebanese village
The Israeli army reportedly fired flare bombs over the Al-Adayssi village in southern Lebanon on Saturday night, Lebanese media reported.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=277286