Le 20 juillet, dans les colonnes du Devoir, M. Attali, consul général d’Israël à Montréal, pose la question suivante: «Quel est le point commun entre les nombreuses turbulences que traverse le Moyen-Orient actuellement, qu’il s’agisse de la prise de contrôle de la bande de Gaza par le Hamas, de la lutte pour le pouvoir du Hezbollah au Liban, de l’agitation qui secoue l’Irak ou de l’acquisition prochaine de l’arme nucléaire par une dictature radicale? La réponse est l’Iran.» En réalité, cette réponse serait plutôt: les États-Unis. Lorsqu’on connaît les projets américains de «nouveau Moyen-Orient», agiter la «menace iranienne» constitue une stratégie de diversion qui ne résiste pas à l’examen des faits.

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Le portrait que je dépeins, bien qu’il semble sombre et menaçant, ne concerne pas tous les camps de réfugiés au Liban. Toutefois, il est temps de tirer sérieusement la sonnette d’alarme sur ce qui se passe dans cet espace spécifique des camps de réfugiés, comme exemple de l’état d’exception et des politiques du vide.

La bataille armée entre l’armée libanaise et Fatah al-Islam à l’intérieur du camp de réfugiés de Nahr El-Bared, au nord de Tripoli, dure depuis quarante jours, entraînant la destruction de plus de la moitié des immeubles du camp et la fuite d’environ 30.000 personnes vers d’autres camps.

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Last fall, shortly after I returned from Nigeria, I was accosted by a perky blond college student whose blue eyes seemed to match the “African” beads around her wrists.

“Save Darfur!” she shouted from behind a table covered with pamphlets urging students to Take Action Now! Stop Genocide In Darfur!

My aversion to college kids jumping onto fashionable social causes nearly caused me to walk on, but her next shout stopped me.

“Don’t you want to help us save Africa?” she yelled.

It seems that these days, wracked by guilt at the humanitarian crisis it has created in the Middle East, the West has turned to Africa for redemption. Idealistic college students, celebrities such as Bob Geldof and politicians such as Tony Blair have all made bringing light to the dark continent their mission. They fly in for internships and fact-finding missions or to pick out children to adopt in much the same way my friends and I in New York take the subway to the pound to adopt stray dogs.

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Britain’s Transport and General Workers’ Union has called upon its 800,000 members to boycott Israeli-made products based on what they term Israel’s “criminal policies in Palestinian territories.”

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OCHA: U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestine

February, 28th 2007: At approximately 02:30 on 28 February, a large force of IDF soldiers and Israeli Border Police re-entered Nablus. This latest incursion marks the continuation of Operation “Hot Winter”, the largest military incursion in three years in Nablus city.

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Samir Kassir’s ‘Being Arab’ – last testament of an engaged intellectual

BEIRUT: Before he was assassinated in June 2005, columnist and academic Samir Kassir completed a slim book in French called “Considérations sur le malheur arabe” He promised an Arabic edition and in late 2006 “Being Arab,” an English-language version of his work, appeared.

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Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, the Daily Star. Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

Three elements of collaboration between two artists who happen to be mother and son

BEIRUT: Nothing encourages artists to produce better work than competition. Last summer, for 34 days straight, two artists – one holed up in Achrafieh and the other holed up in Sin al-Fil – made drawing after drawing. When the power supply was on, they posted their pieces online, filling their respective blogs with diary-like accounts of living through the war in Lebanon.

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By Yoav Stern, Haaretz.

A proposed constitution written by the Israeli Arab advocacy center, Adalah, states that Arab Knesset members will be able to bring about the disqualification of bills that impinge on the rights of Arabs, and classifies the State of Israel as a “bilingual and multicultural” country rather than a Jewish state.

The proposal, entitled “The Democratic Constitution,” also calls for majority and minority groups to split control of the government in such a way that will strengthen the Arab minority on issues relating to the character of the state.

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Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

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