by Ray Smith Inter Press Service November 25 2009

Photo: Mary Ellen Davis Sky over destroyed street in Nahr al-Bared.

Nahr al-Bared, Lebanon – More than two years after their refugee camp was destroyed in a war between the Lebanese army and the Islamist militant group Fatah al-Islam, Nahr al-Bared refugees Wednesday witnessed the start of the camp’s reconstruction. Their relief is mixed with scepticism, however.

Established in 1949, the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in north Lebanon’s Akkar region has become home to more than 30,000 residents. In the summer of 2007, the camp was totally destroyed as the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) fought a group of well-equipped, mostly non-Palestinian militants who had taken over the camp.

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rabble.ca by Murray Dobbin | November 2009

Photo: Sabrien Amrov Solidarity demonstration with Palestine in downtown Montreal.

Ever since the Israeli invasion of the Gaza strip last December the global debate surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has intensified with both sides upping the ante, and the stakes of the framing battle increasing almost daily.

One of the most recent — but almost totally unreported — developments in Canada is something called the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA). It is not an official parliamentary body but is a multi-party, voluntary association of 13 MPs. It is currently holding an inquiry into anti-semitism because, it says, “The extent and severity of anti-semitism is widely regarded as at its worst level since the end of the Second World War.”

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Fred Moten | PACBI | 7 November 2009

Photo: Palestinian stands in Gaza Strip grave after Israeli military bombing.

1. The justification of the boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions is quite simple and quite clear: the victims of a sovereign brutality instantiated in racial-military domination have come to an overwhelming consensus, in the very shadow of the state that has come to exemplify The State and its exception, that boycott is the most immediate form of international support they require. To be in solidarity with the Palestinian people is to enact and support the boycott. However, the significance of the boycott is a slightly more complicated matter. Arguments against the boycott that go beyond the rejection of whatever form either of criticism of Israel or Palestinian resistance or the sometimes open/sometimes veiled assertion of an assumed Israeli exception and exemption, focus on the negative impact the presumed isolation and withdrawal of support for Israeli dissidents will have, already a morally obtuse argument insofar as it shifts our primary political and ethical concerns away from the actual victims of racial-military domination.

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November 14, 2009 Faster Times Interview with Palestinian Author Ghada Karmi

Photo: Larry Towell Palestinian women in occupied Palestine.

Ghada Karmi is a Palestinian physician and author based in London. Since her autobiography In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story was first published in 2002 by Verso Books, it has been translated into forty languages. The late Edward Said described the memoir as “…the story of a fascinating woman…humanly rich and interesting.” On a speaking tour throughout the US to promote the newly-released second edition of In Search for Fatima, Mrs. Karmi visited Columbia University at the behest of an Arab cultural group, Turath. While there, she sat down with TFT associate editor Aseel Najib to discuss her wok.

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Sarah Irving, Electronic Intifada 26 October 2009.

Photo: Nanjing subway station, Shanghai, China.

George Habash, the late leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), called China Palestine’s “best friend.” Indeed, he was on an official PFLP visit to China when the conflict between Palestinian forces and the Hashemite Kingdom erupted in Jordan in 1970, the events later known as “Black September.”

Habash had good reason to appreciate China’s friendship at the time. According to Dr. Yukiko Miyagi of the UK-based Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW), one characteristic of the People’s Republic’s policy toward the Arab states and political movements in the 1960s was high-profile support for the Palestinian liberation movement.

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photo essay by Valérian Mazataud

Photo: Valérian Mazataud. Israeli occupation forces launch teargas at protests, Nil’in.

Palestinian protests in opposition to Israel’s ‘separation barrier’ or apartheid wall have spread across the West Bank in recent years, as popular protest committees have formed in multiple cities, many holding weekly demonstrations as in Bil’in and Nil’in villages.

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criminalization of social movements & the anti-terrorism crusade

Thursday, November 5th 2009
6:30 pm Pavillon J-A-DeSève (DS)
UQAM, Rm DS-1580
320 Sainte-Catherine Street E.
graphic obey

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Al Jazeera Thursday, October 22, 2009.

Photo: Zoriah (c) Palestinian youth among rubble in the Gaza Strip.

Richard Goldstone, the jurist who authored a UN report accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity during its war on Gaza, has challenged the US to justify its claims that his findings are flawed and biased.

Goldstone told Al Jazeera on Thursday that he had not heard from the administration of Barack Obama, the US president, about the flaws Washington claims to have identified in the report.

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Yves Engler, Electronic Intifada, 12 October 2009

Photo: Israeli apartheid wall in occupied Palestine.

In June, Israel began barring some North Americans with Palestinian-sounding names entry through Ben Gurion Airport. Forced to reroute through a land-border crossing that connects the West Bank with Jordan, their passports were stamped “Palestinian Authority only,” which prevents them from entering Israel proper.

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Crash the party! Bring your shoes!

Thursday, October 22, 11am-1pm
In front of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel,
900 René-Levesque Boulevard

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