(source: Voice of the Cape Online / Al Jazeera)

Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has implicated Israel for the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri.In a video address to journalists from an undisclosed location on Monday, Nasrallah said he had evidence to prove Israel's complicity in al-Hariri's assassination in a bomb explosion in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

"He has not provided undisputed, solid proof that implicates Israel," Al Jazeera's Rula Amin reporting from Beirut said.The Hezbollah leader, however, said that "there is enough evidence pointing to Israel," our correspondent said.

Al-Hariri and 22 others were killed on the Beirut seafront on February 14, 2005.The assassination sparked an international outcry and led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.The murder has been widely blamed on Syria, but Damascus has routinely denied involvement.

Blaming Israel

Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East analyst, told Al Jazeera that Nasrallah "talked about who has the most to benefit from the assassination ... [by trying to] provide a very complex case by drawing a historical link between Israel" and the killing.

Nasrallah said Israel used spying and covert operations to attempt to drive a wedge between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government.Among the material presented was what he described as Israeli reconaissance footage intercepted by Hezbollah of areas frequented by al-Hariri.Aaron Klein, a political commentator in Jerusalem, told Al Jazeera that the contents of Nasrallah's rare speech were not surprising.

"This is exactly what everybody in Israel was expecting, which was to use the Jewish state as a scapegoat because he is up against a rock and a hard place," Klein said.

UN probe

A UN court probing the assassination of al-Haririis planning to charge Hezbollah members in the killing, Nasrallah said in July.Nasrallah criticised the UN investigation because it "does not look into the possibility that Israel is implicated, we believe it is biased".

Our correspondent said that Hezbollah considers the tribunal "an Israeli project to create strife in Lebanon".Impending charges from the international body had pushed Lebanon into a "very sensitive phase",  Klein said. Hezbollah fought a devestating war with Israel in 2006.

Klein said that a UN verdict against Hezbollah would be "devastating for them in terms of the internal politics" as it could spark anger among other sectors of Lebanese society.Rula Amin said that "Hezbollah is trying to dismiss the findings of international investigations. They want to discredit the basic information that investigators had depended on in making their conclusions".

"He is trying to say that the findings are not credible and politically motivated ... he is trying to do is build a case in which he says Israel is a legitimate suspect," our correspondent said.

By Jon Elmer

(source: Al Jazeera)

In February 2006, following Hamas' electoral victory, a top advisor to Ehud Olmert, the then Israeli prime minister, Dov Weisglass, described the essence of Israel's Gaza policy."It's like a meeting with a dietitian," Weisglass said. "We need to make the Palestinians lose weight, but not to starve to death."

Although any Gazan will quickly point out that the blockade on the movement of goods - and people - into and out of Gaza long predates the election of Hamas, as the years have passed the exact date of the siege has often been, for reasons of political expedience, recast to coincide with the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.Israel characterises the blockade as "economic warfare" targeting Hamas and its constituents.

'No humanitarian crisis'

According to government documents that have surfaced in response to a lawsuit before Israel's high court, "the limitation on the transfer of goods is a central pillar in the means at the disposal of the state of Israel in the armed conflict between it and Hamas".

A key white paper, entitled Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip - Red Lines, meticulously details the minimum caloric intake required, based on age and sex, to keep Gazans hovering just above malnutrition levels, and specifies the corresponding grams and calories of each type of food allowed into Gaza.

By Alex Lantier

(source:  World Socialist Website)

At a White House briefing last Wednesday, President Obama personally joined the growing chorus of war threats against Iran coming from Washington and its allies.

Recent threats include remarks from US Defense Secretary Gates, who argued against “another war in the Middle East” in 2008, but stated last month that the US does “not accept the idea of Iran having nuclear weapons.” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said it was “still time for sanctions,” but that “at a certain point, we should realize that sanctions cannot work.”

It was against this backdrop that the White House called in selected journalists for a press briefing on Iran. They reportedly discovered only after arriving that the “briefer” at this apparently routine event was none other than the president himself.

Obama’s purpose was to deliver a blunt warning to the Iranian government: it could either surrender to US demands that it abandon its nuclear program, or face US attack.

By Ali Abunimah

(source: Electronic Intifada)

In recent weeks, the US- and Israeli-backed Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) has made a show of calling on Palestinians to boycott goods manufactured in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Despite the rhetoric of defiance and resistance, and exaggerated screams of anguish from Israeli settler groups, the PA effort actually appears designed to co-opt, undermine and abort the much broader Palestinian civil society campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), and to reassure Israel of the continued docility and collaboration of its puppet regime in Ramallah.

As part of his daily routine of publicity stunts, unelected Ramallah-based "Prime Minister" Salam Fayyad has been seen tossing bundles of settler-produced goods onto bonfires. As for PA "President" Mahmoud Abbas, he recently signed the "Karama" (dignity) Pledge -- promising not to allow settlement goods into his house and encouraging others to do the same. PA volunteers have been going door-to-door in the occupied West Bank to distribute lists of settler-made consumer goods that should be avoided.

By Gideon Levy

(source: Haaretz)

Sometimes you really can't see the forest for the trees. The forest of political, governmental and institutional racism in Israel is dark and deep. One particular tree in that forest happens to have Israelis all riled up: The state's handling of the children of migrant workers. In the shade of a nearby tree is the state's handling of these children's parents, but this excites the Israelis somewhat less. And there are many other poisonous trees in the forest: Citizenship laws, loyalty laws, conversion laws, the razing of Bedouin villages in the Negev and even the story of the Arab delivery man who was convicted of rape for pretending to be a Jew. Each one galvanized parts of society into action, and this is well and good; but few see the big picture, and the big picture is several times worse than the sum of its components.

Enlightenment came from an unexpected direction; it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of all people, who accurately defined the problem. In deciding on these children's future, he said, the cabinet is torn between humanitarian considerations on one hand and Zionist considerations on the other. The prime minister of Israel himself presents them as a contradiction, and this is the story in a nutshell.