http://www.btselem.org/english/press_releases/20100616.asp
"Any additional budget is welcomed, but it's still very far from the real needs," says Ramiz Jaraisy, mayor of the Israeli Arab city of Nazareth -- In the year since he graduated from Israel's top technical college, Samer Kablawi has sent out over 50 resumes to high-tech companies — and had one interview. It's a predicament that may seem typical for young graduates in a world still emerging from recession. But Kablawi notes one discrepancy: While his fellow Arab classmates have struggled to find work, most of his Jewish classmates landed high-tech jobs months ago.
Yoav Laloum, the champion of Sephardi schoolgirls' rights, has gone into hiding after receiving death threats. Though he is not happy with how the case turned out, he says he had no choice, and was guided by a higher ethic ... His social conscience, he says, dates back to his childhood, when he heard his father called "black" in an Ashkenazi school.
A migrant worker who arrived in Israel legally from the Philippines four years ago to work as a nurse is currently facing deportation over her marriage to another documented migrant worker in Israel.
Ministry ignores Israeli requests to block extradition from Poland of Uri Brodsky, alleged Israeli spy suspected of procuring a passport for the assassins of a top Hamas official, according to German press reports.
Egyptian Foreign minister denies bowing to Hamas pressure to amend draft agreement for Palestinian unity government.
President Mahmoud Abbas has reiterated his demand that Israel lift its siege on the Gaza Strip, speaking Friday with US envoy George Mitchell in the West Bank city of Ramallah. As part of that initiative, Abbas proposed that Gaza and the West Bank be permitted to trade goods, and called on the Obama administration and international community to make every effort to implement the plan.
Washington - The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood is threatening to boycott France for its decision to cease broadcasting Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV, Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported Saturday ... Brotherhood leader Hammam Saeed released a statement on the movement's website Saturday saying he had sent a letter to the French ambassador in Amman. Saeed in his letter said he the movement considers France's decision to suspend broadcast of Al-Aqsa TV on EUTELSAT (European satellite) is a indicative of discrimination against Arabs and Muslims.
...The children saw how police officers monitor demonstrations and watched as a robot disarmed a bomb. Parents reported that as well as looking at weapons, children handled an M16 assault rifle, a machine gun and a pistol. The children were instructed to wash their clothes separately after getting sprayed with water mixed with noxious-smelling liquids, used to disperse crowds.
Turkish ships among 70 vessels taking part in real peace flotilla organized by Turk - Ashkelon Mayor Benny Vaaknin welcomed the flotilla and said it constituted a response to previous terror sails.
The servers are scheduled to shut down at approximately 9pm Friday local time (2 hours later than UTC/GMT), after which users may notice error messages online. Normal operations are expected to renew by 6am Sunday.
I bet you’ve never heard of anti-Palestinism. In Israel and the United States, defaming and delegitimizing the Palestinians is a national sport; but have you ever heard anybody complain about it? ... Why do pundits and politicians in the West get away with denying that the Palestinians are the indigenous people of the Holy Land? Why do we allow Israelis and their supporters to denigrate the historic rights of the Palestinians to live in the only homeland they’ve ever known? 
Passengers exchanged satirical remarks when they heard the news in the taxi they were riding Sunday morning; that the Israeli government decided for the first time since imposing a blockade on Gaza to allow the passage of new items. These include mayonnaise, ketchup, shoelaces, buttons, needles, safety pins and sewing thread. Israel's decision was the butt of many jokes made by passengers heading from the town of Deir Al-Balah to Gaza City. Until Sunday morning, these goods were considered a threat to Israel's security. 
On June 17, Haaretz writer Barak Ravid and Reuters headlined, “Israel to ease Gaza land blockade,” ... Israel’s official statement was vague, saying implementation procedures will follow, emphasizing that “existing security procedures” will continue, showing the announcement was a sham PR gesture to diffuse worldwide anger and satisfy world leaders, short of fully opening Gaza’s land and sea borders for free in and out movement of people and goods. Nothing less can be accepted. Yet Israel’s ruse may have worked.
Public opinion is the main driver in Turkish policy on Israel-Palestine. Crises with Israel have always followed any Turkish perception that injustice is being done to the Palestinians.
NIGHT. UTTER darkness. Heavy rain. Visibility close to nil. And suddenly – a flash of lightning. For a fraction of a second, the landscape is lit up. For this split second, the terrain surrounding us can be seen. It is not the way it used to be. OUR GOVERNMENT’ action against the Gaza aid flotilla was such a lightning flash. Israelis normally live in darkness as far as seeing the world is concerned. But for that instant, the real landscape around us could be seen, and it looked frightening. Then the darkness settled down over us, Israel returned to its bubble, the world disappeared from view.
A new organisation is actively recruiting scores of non-Israeli Jews, many of them American, to serve in the Israeli army as it faces threats on multiple fronts in a region largely hostile towards it. "We feel that Israel is fighting for its life," said Jay Schultz, the executive director of Aish Malach, a new Israeli body set up to help foreigners enlist.
 Last month I reported here on a new Knesset bill which, if passes, will enable the state to shut down any association or organization which provides information that is used in prosecutions outside Israel against IDF officers. In other words, all watchdog groups which deal with Israel’s security forces – from Amnesty to The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel -  are in danger ... Here are the two changes that will be put into the law concerning associations in Israel if the new bill is passed, followed by the introduction to the bill, as it was submitted to the Knesset not long ago.
In the past three weeks I have had the slightly hectic but immense pleasure of visiting Tehran, Damascus and New York – from the Axis of Evil to the Great Satan, as they sometimes refer to each other. From speaking to politically plugged-in people and ordinary citizens in these three wonderful cities, I can confidently announce that we are all in much greater trouble than appears to be the case on the surface. A catastrophe awaits us all, if immoderation prevails in these three lands, where American, Arab and Iranian politicians seem to be driven by a potentially devastating combination of righteousness, resentment, resistance and revenge.
The Christian Science Monitor and reporter Scott Peterson do what the rest of our media ought to do, and examine the obsession with Iran in Israel as an irrational and Holocaust-related phobia, which distracts Israel from the true existential threat, governance over half its population that does not get a vote. When will the Israel-philes in the big press even lift the carpet on this stuff?
Hold your breath. This in not a joke, this is not a satire. It is real almost as much as it is pathetic. Israeli Ynet just reported that the images of captured Israeli commandos published in Turkish papers opened "...old wounds among those Israeli commandos involved in similar circumstances. Thus far, at least four combat soldiers have reported worsening of their (mental) condition"  While the rest of the world is caught shocked and angry by the images of Israeli navy seals executing peace activists in cold blood, the Israelis seem to moan over their new emerging phantasmic trauma.
...this is the Ajami district of Jaffa, the eponymous setting for the relentlessly gripping Jewish-Arab feature film of crime, poverty and violent feuding in an ethnically-mixed community. It took less than a month to shoot on a shoestring budget with local amateur actors, but has won a string of awards and was nominated for an Oscar. It went on release in Britain for the first time yesterday.
Excerpt: At least 46 Iraqis were killed and 114 were wounded in a series of significant attacks across the country. Most casualties were from two bombings north of Baghdad, but some smaller attacks were striking in their savagery ... Senior Shi’ite cleric Abdul-Mahdi al-Kerbalai, who is a spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, expressed his concerns that a new government has yet to be formed. Many believe Al-Sistani could be the kingmaker in this disputed election. The process could take several months even though the new parliament has already met.
Excerpt: Violence in Iraq tapered off significantly today, but at least six Iraqis were killed and 14 more wounded in new attacks. Meanwhile, tensions at the Turkish border revved up after more PKK strikes. Also, Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi said that Iraqi and U.S. sources warned him of assassination attempts.
*Interpreter had been warned before *One son escapes, nephew and other son arrested - SAMARRA, Iraq, June 18 (Reuters) - An Iraqi interpreter for U.S. soldiers was shot dead by his son and nephew on the orders of a Sunni Islamist insurgent group that considered him a traitor, police said on Friday.

16 June - UNHCR claims Iraq's violence will endanger lives of 50 deportees due to be forcibly returned to Baghdad

UN to probe 'beating' of deported Iraqis by UK staff
The UN refugee agency is investigating allegations that deported Iraqi asylum seekers were beaten by UK Border Agency staff to get them on and off the plane.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/10352966.stm

UNHCR reaches milestone in resettlement of Iraqi refugees
AL HASSAKEH, Syria, June 18 (UNHCR) – UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres announced on Friday that UNHCR has referred 100,000 Iraqi refugees for resettlement from Middle East countries since 2007. While hailing the milestone, Guterres said more needed to be done.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/UNHCR/e24be2f2ef3bd47a77b55c477ae7d006.htm

Egypt opposition angered at government for allowing the fleet of more than 12 ships to cross Egyptian manned waterway, Al-Quds Al-Arabi reports.

Led by 'Gumus' ('Noor' in Arabic), a wave of Turkish melodramas, police procedurals and conspiracy thrillers — 'Yaprak Dokumu', 'Kurtlar Vadisi', 'Asmali Konak', 'Ihlamurlar Altinda' and now the steamy 'Ask-i Memnu', the top-rated series in Turkey (think Madame Bovary on the Bosporus) — are making their way onto Arab televisions, wielding a kind of soft power.
An American Muslim stranded in Egypt can't board a plane home until he commits the logical impossibility of proving a negative
The other day I was driving around listening to public radio, Hanna Rosin, discussing her article about changing gender roles in the latest Atlantic, with Andrea Bernsteinon WNYC's Brian Lehrer show when a caller, clearly a hasbarist, said that she was leaving out the “subjugation” of women in Muslim societies. Rosin picked up the segue and described the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, and then host and author moved on quickly, to men’s changing roles... Neither sought to contradict the man’s prejudice.
Muted support for Palestine, funding cuts for Arab groups, now a ban on the phrase 'Israeli apartheid': what's going on in Canada?
Washington - Pastor Bob Roberts proves Israel-centric evangelism isn't the end of the story for conservative Christianity in America. A powerhouse in evangelical America, Bob Roberts has made humanitarian work and multi-faith outreach a serious part of his ministry, and it has taken him all the way to the Gaza Strip. Roberts talked to Palestine Note about Gaza, the turning tide of conservative Christianity, what needs to change about our foreign policy, and the beauty of our increasingly globalized world.
GROZNY, Russia, June 18 (Reuters) - Women in Russia's volatile Muslim Chechnya region said on Friday that police had targeted them with paintball pellets for not wearing headscarves, outraging rights activists.
PRISTINA, June 18 (Reuters) - Around 5,000 people protested in Kosovo on Friday against a government decision to ban pupils from wearing Muslim headscarves in public schools.