With all the drama going on about Obama, McCain and Lieberman after the recent AIPAC conference, an extremely disturbing event has almost passed unnoticed: Obama stated that he opposed dividing Jerusalem in the context of a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.
I have been a supporter of Senator Obama's candidacy for a long time now. I volunteered for his campaign in New Hampshire and now I'm volunteering in D.C. You can understand then how appalled I was when I read this.
Anyone who knows even the basics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and peace process understands that an undivided Jerusalem and peace between Israelis and Palestinians are mutually exclusive.
This should be extremely troubling to every progressive who considers himself a supporter of peace in the Middle East and especially for those of us who have supported and worked for Senator Obama's candidacy.

In what is clearly an attempt to prevent antiwar students to protest against the war in the future, 250 Princeton High School students are facing 2 days of detention after walking out of class and attending an hour long rally and speak-out protesting the five-year US occupation of Iraq on March 19th, 2008. Principal Gary Snyder had originally promised that the students would not receive detention, but reneged when it became clear that hundreds of student were planning on walking out.

Eli Israel is an Iraq Vet who has definitely received far less attention than he deserves. Zmag has posted a video on youtube of Israel talking passionately during an anti-war rally in Kennebunkport. It's almost 4 a.m, but it sure as hell woke me up.
Please jump over for more...

In the last few weeks, many diarists have proposed different methods for pressuring our representatives so that they will start impeachment hearings. Most of these methods are focused on contacting elected officials and letting them know our position ad-nauseam, until they are forced to listen to us.
This idea, that by contacting our representatives and urging them to vote for impeachment we are actually giving them one more reason to do so, even if it is a tiny one, is a very reasonable one since that is the way our democracy should work; elected officials representing the will of the people. Unfortunately, it isn’t the way it works.

First of all, I love the guy. He is one of the most thoughtful and courageous progressives in the planet. He is the most powerful voice struggling to bring this country back to a democracy that conducts itself based on rationality and tolerance. He will be remembered by history as one of the greatest visionaries of our time, a true international hero.

That's why I truly hope he stays as far away from the white house as humanly possible.  

It is by far the most controversial and difficult to solve issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian refugees issue has been discussed and negotiated hundreds of times and nevertheless, an agreement between the parts seems as improbable as always.
The positions may seem impossible to reconcile, but there just might be another solution.
Read about it under the fold.  

I ran into two excellent and very interesting articles this week regarding the current situation in Israel and Palestine. One is written by famous Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery and deals with the idiocy of rejoicing in Arabic internal confrontations and the fallacy of believing they are good for Israel's interests. The other is written by Haaretz's journalist Zvi Bar'el and deals with the failure of Israeli and international sanctions on Hamas and Israel's pathetic incapacity to present the Palestinian people with a decent diplomatic alternative.
Small fragments, the links and a humble opinion after the fold.

After some months participating in this community it has been astonishing to realize how dysfunctional can intelligent, progressive and informed individuals be when discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To the point where one of the issues that has most urgency of tolerant and profound debate is avoided by most Kossaks in order to stay away from the argumentative pandemonium.