Court ruling granting right for all to use highway that cuts through West Bank is soured by new chain of army checkpoints -- ...Nobody is happy. Israeli drivers fear their security will be compromised; Palestinians say the reopening of the road is a farce, rendered worthless by the construction of new checkpoints.
28 May - An additional popular protest will be added to the Friday roster, as a motorcade of Palestinian vehicles take to the formerly Israeli-only Highway 443 to protest the continued restrictions to Palestinian use. A statement from the popular struggle coordination committee released on Thursday, said residents of the villages along 443 would take their cars to the street and proceed along the entire length of the road, despite military decisions to limit Palestinian use of the area. 
Beit Ghur a-Tahta, West Bank - For the first time in eight years, Israel today allowed Palestinians to drive on a four-lane highway that passes by this and five neighboring Arab villages ... Despite the opening, however, many Palestinians villagers see the move as taking one step forward and two steps back, highlighting how years of roadblocks has eroded optimism about peace talks. Villagers' access to 443 will be controlled by new checkpoints and Palestinians will still be barred from passing through the checkpoints at exits for Jerusalem and Ramallah – the seat of the Palestinian government and a major urban center.
Dorit Beinisch demands explanation after government ignores Supreme Court ruling to halt link between settlements across private Palestinian land -- [Yesh Din] claims that the road, designed to cut travel time between the West Bank settlements of Givat Hayovel and Eli, prevents access by  Palestinian residents in the village Krayot to 1,500 dunam (370 acres) of their agricultural land. The road is being built without legal permission on land owned by Palestinian citizens from a neighboring village, Yesh Din said. In April 2009, the state issued an interim order to stop paving the road. But thefirst violation of the order was reported just  three months later.
The 7-story Beit Yehonatan structure was built by ultra-nationalists in the heart of Silwan, a predominantly Arab neighborhood -- The Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal to overturn an order to seal off a building in the heart of East Jerusalem in which a handful of Jewish families have settled. The Jerusalem municipality ordered the contentious Beit Yehonatan building, named for convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, to be sealed off and evacuated as it was constructed without a legal permit.
Fourteen rabbis and 25 secretary generals from West Bank settlements on Thursday signed a letter calling for mass protests at settlement junctions to clarify to Israel Defense Forces commanders that "any attempt to demolish buildings will involve clashes in the streets, before the act and after the retreat."
Settlers in the flashpoint East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan sparked a second day of clashes on Saturday, firing live rounds into the air from an illegal home in the area, witnesses reported. Palestinian pedestrians and residents who heard the nearby shots rushed to the area, arguing with the settlers which led to altercations. Israeli police officers were called to the scene, firing rounds of rubber bullets and tear-gas canisters in an apparent attempt to disperse the fighting crowds
Palestinian residents living near the illegal Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron accused settlers of setting fire to a local Palestinian store and home on Saturday. Muhammad Fattouh Aj-Ja’bari, the store owner's son, said they were informed of the fire in both the shop and the home above it, which the family also owns. The fire destroyed the store's contents, said Aj-Ja'bari, and that the home was currently vacant. "Its not possible that anyone other than settlers started the fire in a place full of Israeli soldiers and settlers," he added. 

Six activists drape banner from Israeli-owned cafe at Union Square; say Israel bans chocolate importation into Gaza.
The Palestinian embassy in Algeria and an Algerian NGO signed an agreement on Thursday, providing support for 100 Palestinian children whose parents were victims of Israeli army assaults or imprisoned.
UAE Ambassador to Egypt Sheikh Mohammed bin Nakhira Al-Thahiri dispatched a convoy of food and medical aid to Gaza from the people of the UAE to the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, expected to arrive Friday. A delegation from the Palestinian embassy in Egypt joined the convoy to the Rafah crossing to facilitate the entrance of the aid, a statement said.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee will hold its second national conference in Nablus starting on Monday, and preparations for the event were concluded just days before, organizers said. The conference follows up on the 2005 call for a Palestinian national boycott and divestment movement supported by some 170 unions, networks and civil society organizations. 
Israeli war planes launched five missiles at the Gaza International Airport near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and one missile at a blacksmith workshop in eastern Gaza City on Saturday morning, witnesses reported. An Israeli military spokesperson told media outlets that the air strikes came in response to a homemade projectile fired from the Gaza Strip towards Sderot overnight. The spokesperson was also quoted as saying that a group of fighters had attempted to plant an explosive device near the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip near the Nahal Oz crossing. No Palestinian faction in Gaza had claimed the projectile launch as of press time. 
Israel says it holds Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, as responsible for any attacks carried out from the coastal territory.

Khan Younis went black Friday afternoon following what Gaza Power officials said was Israeli fire directed toward the main line providing electricity to the southern Gaza Strip city. The report followed hours after the Eagles of Palestine Brigades said fighters ambushed Israeli forces patrolling the occupied border area east of Khan Younis in the Sheikh Hamoudah area ...  Dardasawi said the lines that were taken out provide some 55% of available power to the city, and caused some 75% of homes and businesses to lose power. The official said the grid had just turned back on following the scheduled overnight blackout when the line was damaged, noting that the planned 8-hour window for power in the city would not be able to go forward. "This means that people will not even be able to pump water," he said. 
With the debate over whether or not a humanitarian crisis exists in Gaza raging, Israel sealed its border crossing with the coastal enclave on Friday, following a week of reduced imports, a UN report found ... "This week's figure constitutes around 19 percent of the weekly average (2,807 truckloads) that entered during the first five months of 2007, before the Hamas takeover," the UN Protection of Civilians Report read.

Three children of the Qabaha family of Barta'a suffer physical and mental disabilities, but their parents insist on raising them at home, with the help of an Israeli couple who've taken them under their wing ... Tami was active in the Machsom Watch organization and six years ago, at the Reihan checkpoint, met the Qabaha family from east Barta'a. Ever since, the two families' fates have been intertwined.
It’s been too long since I’ve seen the Abu Leilas, living in a tent in Gaza’s northern Al Attatra region. The last time I visited, 31 December, the land was drenched with long-needed rain, their tent leaky and sagging beneath the water’s weight. Only the oldest daughter is ‘home’ when I stop in, parents Saleh and Arafia having gone to the bombshell of their pre-Israeli war on Gaza home not far from the tent camp.
...Isdud, a farming community to the north of Gaza’s current border, was ethnically cleansed, in the months after the expulsions began in May 1948. It was one of over 530 villages razed and destroyed after the residents were forced out by Zionist attacks... UPDATE: On 21 May 2010, Israeli bulldozers destroyed Jaber Abu Rjila’s remaining chicken farm, killing 150 chickens, 200 pigeons, 60 rabbits, and 5 sheep, and destroying 3 tons of wheat and rye as well as an estimated 10,000 shekels worth of onions, said Rjila. The land in question is over 600 metres from the border fence.
Egyptian security forces announced the arrest of four Palestinians they said were tunnel smugglers, and the simultanious closure of 17 tunnels during a large security campaign on Thursday night. The seized tunnels were empty, a security sources told Ma'an, but the Palestinian workers were located on Friday morning attempting to escape the Egyptian Rafah region via a tunnel near Salah Ad-Din gate. 
...De facto Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab Al-Ghussein told reporters that his government "will not remain silent over the torture inside West Bank prisons," and called on the media to "reveal the truths" behind the PA's prisons. 
Dafaa Abu Adra, who fired Qassam at southern city, mortar shells at IDF post, planted bombs against Israeli soldiers, is convicted of attempted murder, sentenced to 28 years in prison
One day after White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, the same offer was extended to President Mahmoud Abbas. A statement from the White House press secretary released on Thursday morning confirmed that Abbas would sit with US President Barack Obama on 9 June, almost a week after Netanyahu meets with the leader. 
The United States National Security Adviser deplored the decision to single out Israel at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Conference on Friday, calling the move "gratuitous". U.S. General James L. Jones spoke after the conclusion of the conference, where the U.S. accepted Arab demands to pressure Israel over its atomic program as part of a pact among NPT members to aim for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons.
Obama administration officials complained repeatedly that Israel was 'singled out' in the new Mid East NPT document, but it turns out that it was the U.S. itself that put Israel front and center. In addition to Israel, Pakistan and India were also called out by name in the document, according to the latest reports. So was North Korea, in even harsher language. What do these four countries have in common? Well: none are NPT signatories. But Israel is unique in two ways: It's the only clandestine program (i.e. not publicly declared or tested weapons) and it's the only country that U.S. officials went to bat for immediately following the agreement on the document. No mention from Barack Obama and Jim Jones about how Pakistan was being singled out. (Where's the Pakistan lobby in the power rankings again?)

RAWABI, West Bank (AFP) – Amr Khalil has been steering bulldozers over West Bank hilltops for years, but now instead of building Jewishsettlements he feels he is striking a blow against them. The 30-year-old is just one of dozens of Palestinians, many of whom used to work in settlements because of lack of other opportunities, who are now laying the groundwork for Rawabi, a massive planned community north of Ramallah.
West Bank members of the UNRWA workers' union announced an open strike starting Sunday, that will hit all sectors of the NGO service offices. 
The Palestinian Journalist Syndicate earned a membership spot in the International Federation of Journalists on Friday, when it was voted in along with the Iraq syndicate during the federation's World Congress in Cadiz, Spain.
Spokesman of the Popular Resistance Committees Abu Mujahid told Ma'an on Friday that several contacts were made over the past months to reactivate talks pursuant to a prisoner release. Abu Mujahed, speaking for one of the factions involved in the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006, refused to identify nations next in line for mediation efforts for the swap negotiations, saying only that the success of the efforts depended on Israel's decision on whether or not to finally meet the demands of the resistance factions. "Months have passed since the German mediator last contacted Israel; he expressed resentment more than once in the face of the occupation's decision to backtrack on positions that they had agreed to with him," Abu Mjuahid said.
A female Border Guard officer was attacked by an Arab teen carrying a sword in east Jerusalem, who stole her weapon. Police officers nearby apprehended the teen, after which his friends began to pelt them with stones, but injured only each other. The officer noticed the teen walking on Salah a-Din Street and asked him what he was doing with a sword. In response the teen attacked her, tried to kick her, and made off with her rifle.
Police forces are searching for a suspicious man and woman with an Arab appearance seen on Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Street following reports received from passersby. According to eyewitnesses, the two shouted, "Itbah al-Yahud" (slaughter the Jews). A passerby who spotted the two telephoned the police and claimed to have seen "a terrorist". According to the report, the two acted in suspicious manner on a bus traveling on the street and one of them began shouting in Arabic. [sounds remarkably like many false alarms in the U.S. lately, such as this one: Police: No criminal intent in NH bus bomb scare ]

...Key principles of humanitarian action include that the aid be delivered with neutrality and impartiality, it should "do no harm" to the people and that it not be used to advance political objectives. These principles have been severely lacking in the international humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip. Throughout the blockade, it was well-known by the humanitarian and relief actors, including the most senior UN humanitarian officials, that their aid was failing to meet the critical needs of the population
For a man who knows that he would face almost certain death if he ever returned home, Mohammad Saad appears remarkably at ease and sanguine about his predicament. Mr Saad is among perhaps the most reviled class of person in Palestinian society - someone who has given or sold information to Israel. In a frank and remarkably open interview, Mr Saad has told the BBC why he betrayed his own people and why, he thinks, he now deserves more protection and help from the Israeli state. Mr Saad says that he infiltrated Palestinian militant groups and claims to have saved many lives.
Ben-Gurion was better at boycotting than Abbas or Fayyad. While he declared a boycott on all Arab goods, theirs is only a boycott of products from the settlements.
Bibi or Tibi? Barak or Barakeh? Dov Khenin or Hanin Zuabi? Practically every Jewish Israeli would answer that question with an automatic Pavlovian response, without a moment's hesitation. Of course Bibi, certainly Barak. And even Khenin is better than his fellow MK Zuabi. Why? Because they're Jews. Their worldview, opinions or even qualifications and performance don't matter one iota. The thought that an Arab citizen could ever lead the state is far beyond the boundaries of any public discourse in Israel. 
Netanyahu's efforts to thwart a Palestinian ban on settlement goods are no doubt guided by his concern for the Palestinian -- How can we rely on those Palestinians? For 43 years, they have been building the settlers' homes with the sweat of their brows, paving roads for them and building their fences, and then suddenly, out of the blue, a boycott? Is that the way for partners to behave? Is that how they pay us back after we educated them for so many years to be our hewers of wood and drawers of water? The prime minister, too, doesn't understand this ungratefulness ... "They think they can do everything they want," the prime minister concluded angrily as his heart bled over the terrible injustice being done to us while the whole world looks on and says nothing.
1. Navy HQ, the War Room Voice on radio: Sir, we have made contact with the boat. She's crossing the territorial water line and making for the port of Gaza. Over.M.: Fire warning shots across the bow. If that doesn't help, aim smoke grenades and water hoses at the deck. Over. Forward lookout: Problem, sir. There's some little old woman with them. She has a rag on her head and is holding a pot of soup and a loaf of bread. Someone named "Mother Teresa." Fire a torpedo? Over. M.: Yes, but only at the legs. We have our image in the world to consider. Over and out. 2. Israel passport control, entry hall Albert Einstein: Good morning, Fraulein. Clerk, chewing gum: Huh? What didja say? ....
...if you set the rules, you actually control the dialogue. In these days of proximity talks, as US mediators are searching for ways to take talks to the next level, we must ask: who is setting the rules?  Pre-dialogue, when supporters focused on peace rather than strained agreements, they eventually learned that the idea of peace had been strictly defined by parties in Israel. Indeed, it was quite a singular definition meaning only an actual cessation of evident hostilities with exception made for Israeli war needs. 
Excerpt: At least one Iraqi was killed and seven more were wounded in light, prayer day violence. Meanwhile, Paul Bremer, the diplomat who governed Iraq’s Coalition Provisional Authority after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime said the Iraq War was poorly planned. Also, the U.S. handed over a base to their Iraqi counterparts near Baghdad.
Paul Bremer tells Chilcot inquiry that decision to demobilise was taken in consultation with Tony Blair's government
New satellite images prove the existence of Hezbollah arms bases on Syrian soil, a Times of London report revealed Friday, saying that those bases were also stocked with Syria-made weapons, including surface-to-surface missiles.
Tribesmen in Yemen's Maarib province have agreed to a truce following a botched air raid which killed a provincial official.
The Miami Herald's Carol Rosenberg reports that, this week, yet another federal judge has ordered the Obama administration to release yet another Guantanamo detainee on the ground that there is no persuasive evidence to justify his detention. 
Report recommends 48 detainees be held 'indefinitely'  - A secret Obama Administration report on Guantanamo Bay’s detention center was leaked to the Washington Post today, revealing a pair of claims seemingly in distinct opposition to one another.
The American Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, and numerous other legal organizations are demanding that the Senate Armed Services Committee reject a provision in a House of Representatives bill that would mandate an investigation into lawyers representing Guantánamo Bay detainees.