guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 7 July 2009.

Photo: Palestinian stands at Israeli military check-point.

Israel was yesterday criticised after it refused to allow a group of doctors on a humanitarian mission organised by the French government to enter Gaza.

The team, including three British medics, was turned back by Israeli border guards on Sunday and Monday. They say their mission is purely humanitarian, aimed to helping those in medical need, and some of whom were left injured and in need of surgery after Israel’s attack on Gaza earlier this year.

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Interview with Palestinian poet Suheir Hammad, by Stefan Christoff for Hour.ca

Photo: Abdel Rahman al Mozayen, “Children of the Intifada”

Celebrated Brooklyn-based Palestinian poet Suheir Hammad creates poetry remarkable for its precision and ability to cut to the heart of some of the most profound political conflicts of our time.

Her voice is shaped by Palestinian history, yet offers contemporary insights into a culture often misrepresented in the media. She builds on the work of Palestinian artists like the late Mahmoud Darwish – those who have played a key role in capturing the national voice of a Palestinian nation that remains absent from the world map, but is ubiquitous in the minds of millions around the world. Hammad’s poetry paints a full picture of the immediate conditions and historical injustices faced by the Palestinians.

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letter from The Yes Men in support of the international campaign to boycott Israel

Dear Friends at the Jerusalem Film Festival,

We regret to say that we have taken the hard decision to withdraw our film, “The Yes Men Fix the World,” from the Jerusalem Film Festival in solidarity with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (www.bdsmovement.net).

This decision does not come easily, as we realize that the festival opposes the policies of the State of Israel, and we have no wish to punish progressives who deplore the state-sponsored violence committed in their name.

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juillet / août 2009: à l’extérieur de 2035 Saint Laurent

Joignez Tadamon! pour une série de films du Moyen Orient. La révolution algérienne, la guerre civile libanaise et la lutte palestinienne seront les thèmes pour cet été.

Toutes les projections de film auront lieu à l’extérieur de 2035 Saint Laurent (près de la rue Ontario- Métro Saint Laurent) Heure: 21h, gratuit!. Voir ci-dessous pour les dates de projection de chaque film. En case de pluie, la projection sera reportée d’une semaine, la projection aura lieu au même endriot.

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soirée arabe-moyen orientale avec nourriture et performance musicale.

SAMEDI 11 JUILLET, 20h
Bar Populaire
6584 boul. St-Laurent
entrée: $5
métro Beaubien
Montreal, Quebec

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Al-Ahram, Azmi Bishara, July 1st, 2009

Photo: Faramarz Hashemi. Tehran admits protests over election results.

Iran does not just have an authoritarian system of government, it has a totalitarian one. It is powerful, highly centralised, with sophisticated administrative and control systems, and it applies an ideology that claims to have answers for everything and that seeks to permeate all aspects of life. Instead of a political party and youth organisations, it relies on mass organisations, such as the Basij, that blend security with ideology and even with the benefit of broad sectors of the populace. It also depends on a broad and well-organised network of mullahs and on a politicised security agency and Revolutionary Guard. However, it differs from other totalitarian systems in two definitive ways.

Firstly, no other totalitarian system has incorporated such a high degree constitutionally codified democratic competition in the ruling order and in its ideology. Political competition is systematised in the form of regularly held elections in which rivals espouse different platforms within the framework of the agreed upon rules of the game, just as do political parties within capitalist frameworks. The difference between Democrats and Republicans in the US is not much greater than that between reformists and conservatives in Iran. Of course, these trends in Iran are not actual political parties, but then neither are the Republicans and Democrats, at least not in the conventional European sense. They are more in the nature of electoral leagues.

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Report from Bil’in Palestine.

Photo: ActiveStills. Israeli military launches chemical gas in Bil’in, Palestine.

Three injured and Dozens suffered from gas inhalation when Israeli troops attacked the weekly protest in Bil’in village near the central West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday.

International and Israeli supporters joined the villagers of Bil’in and marched from the village center after the Friday midday prayers. The protesters demanded the halt of the Israeli illegal settlements and the construction of the wall.

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Daily Star, Friday, June 26, 2009.

Photo: Zoriah (c). Israeli air strikes on Beirut in 2006.

BEIRUT: The Israeli Army stepped up its presence along the border with Lebanon deploying armored tanks and setting up fortifications as it intensified airspace violations in the area, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Thursday. In “unusual military activity,” the Israeli Army deployed Merkava tanks and soldier carriers, among other armored vehicles, along the barb-wired fence separating Shebaa Farms from liberated Lebanese territories, the NNA said.

Israeli tanks were also amassing along a 5-kilometer area, stretching from Tallat Sobaih army post to Jabal al-Sheikh observatory. Sporadic gunfire was also heard throughout the day, the NNA report said.

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video report on Israeli Apartheid on Trial event on Bil’in Palestine by Boban Chaldovich.

Photo: Valerian Mazataud. Presentation in Montreal from Mohamed Khatib of Bil’in.

A video report by filmmaker Boban Chaldovich on the Montreal conference on Bil’in’s strugle against Israeli colonization. Watch the video on Bil’in Palestine: view on-line.

Bil’in village has launched a historic lawsuit in Quebec against two locally registered companies, Quebec Superior Court against Green Park International and Green Mount International, which are accused of illegally constructing residential and other buildings on the village’s lands. According to the lawsuit, the lands of Bil’in are subject to the rules and obligations of international law because the West Bank is currently under Israeli military occupation.

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Hamid Dabashi, Al-Ahram, June 2009.

Photo: Faramarz Hashemi. Protests over election results in Iran.

The Iranian presidential election of June 2009 will go down in history as one of the most magnificent manifestations of a people’s indomitable will to achieve enduring democratic institutions. The beleaguered custodians of the Islamic Republic, thoroughly aware of their own lack of legitimacy, were quick to use the occasion as a vindication of their illegitimate rule.

They are wrong. This was not a vote for their legitimacy. It was a vote against it — albeit within the mediaeval juridical fortress they have built around the notions and principles of citizenry in a free and democratic republic. The feeble “opposition” to the clerics abroad also rushed to admonish those who participated in the election, insisting on regime change, at a time when upward of 80 per cent of eligible voters willingly participated in the election. Both these desperate, hasty, and banal readings of the election, predicated on bankrupt positions are false.

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