06 June 2011 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee.
Tamimi, who has been held in custody for over two months, pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and held a defiant speech explaining his motivation for organizing civil resistance to the Occupation. See his full statement below.
After more than two months in custody, the trial of Bassem Tamimi, a 44 year-old protest organizer from the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, finally commenced yesterday. Tamimi, who is the coordinator for the Nabi Saleh popular committee, pleaded not guilty to the charges …

By John Pilger, 26 May 2011.
When Britain lost control of Egypt in 1956, Prime Minister Anthony Eden said he wanted the nationalist president Gamal Abdel Nasser “destroyed… murdered… I don’t give a damn if there’s anarchy and chaos in Egypt”. Those insolent Arabs, Winston Churchill had urged in 1951, should be driven “into the gutter from which they should never have emerged”.
The language of colonialism may have been modified; the spirit and the hypocrisy are unchanged. A new imperial phase is unfolding in direct response to the Arab uprising …

By Patrick O’Connor.
Israeli soldiers yesterday killed at least fifteen Palestinians and wounded many more as they suppressed protests held at border posts facing Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza to mark the 63rd anniversary of the founding of the Zionist state.
This latest massacre of Palestinian civilians inflicted by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) again demonstrates the Israeli government’s brazenly unlawful operations. The situation also exposes the Obama administration’s “humanitarian” pretext for the bombardment of Libya.
NATO’s war is supposedly necessary to protect unarmed civilians from the possibility of being killed by government forces—but …

H/T American Everyman.

A fragile ceasefire holds in Gaza, but it can’t last. Amira Hass – an Israeli journalist who lived there for three years – reports on the unbearable tension of life inside the strip.
“Get away from the window, you’re crazy!” screamed Kauthar. She was terrified to find her daughter standing on the couch by the window, observing the street from the seventh floor. The window had bars. She was afraid not that the girl might fall, but that she would be struck by fire from a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle). A …

By Martin Iqbal.
Hat tip to Scott Creighton over at American Everyman for posting this video.
Recently assaulted activist and demonstrator Jody McIntyre, verbally demolishes a BBC reporter live on air in this video interview. After the condescending, patronising interviewer’s repeated attempts to paint Jody and his fellow protesters as violent and threatening, Jody responds:
“Do you think that I could have, in any way, posed a physical threat from the seat of my wheelchair, to an army of police officers armed with weapons? This whole line of argument is absolutely ludicrous …

By Joharah Baker.
Nothing irks me more than politicians who blow off serious situations with hollow phrases on the outrageous assumption that people will actually believe them. Living in Palestine with a career revolved around words, you can imagine how many times I am irked in a day. Today is no different.
A quick glance at the headlines in Haaretz (really, the only Israeli paper I read), met me with this quote: “Israel’s plan to raze E. Jerusalem homes is an obstacle to peace.” The …

Kevin Ovenden, a representative of Viva Palestina, was on the main ship of the Freedom Flotilla when Israeli soldiers descended onto the deck – he spoke from Turkey to Siân Ruddick.
“We knew the Israelis were going to attack, or intercept us in some way. At 11pm we had the first contact. A visual warning was that two Israeli warships were approaching us, followed by a third.
“We were 90 miles north of the Israeli coast, and 22 miles away from the buffer zone that Israel …

By Ray McGovern
A chief lesson to learn from President Barack Obama’s recent unwillingness to stand up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Lobby is that such timidity can get people killed.
Casualty figures are still arriving in the wake of Israel’s Sunday night-Monday morning commando attack on an unarmed flotilla trying to bring relief supplies to the 1.5 million Palestinians crowded into Gaza. Already, at least nine civilian passengers are reported killed, and dozens wounded.
Seldom has an act of aggression been so …

By Martin Iqbal.
Media coverage of the Flotilla Massacre has been a disgrace.  In confiscating cameras and imprisoning the aid workers travelling on the ships, Israel has succeeded in enacting a media blackout after its killing of 10 unarmed civilians in international waters.
In unsurprising sycophancy, the Western press has shamefully reserved the majority of its page space and airtime to the Israeli government point of view.  This has consisted of propaganda and lies – some laughable, but some dangerously believable.  Comments and assertions have ranged from claims that the aid workers …