The episode underlines the ways in which their forced statelessness leaves Palestinians (almost uniquely among major world nationalities) completely vulnerable to loss of the most basic human rights. That he was forcibly moved to Gaza by the Israelis suggests that many of those singled out for potential deportation from the West Bank may be moved to the small slum along the Mediterranean, which the Israelis have cut off from its traditional markets and which they keep under a blockade of the civilian population (a war crime). The Israeli establishment has decided not to try to colonize Gaza, and its isolation and hopelessness make it an attractive place for them to begin exiling West Bank residents, thus making more room for Israeli colonists.

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"Yunus Muhammad" says in the interview that the Quran instructs Muslims to "terrorize the disbelievers." It does no such thing. The Quran instructs Muslims to live at peace with non-Muslims who are at peace with them.

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The Obama administration is now moving to tighten economic sanctions on Iran, as an alternative to a more direct approach. These measures include pressuring countries and firms not to buy Iranian petroleum and gas; pressuring them not to sell gasoline to Iran; and attempting to make it difficult for Iranian banks to interface with the world economic system.

While these measures could impose costs on Iran, these costs can easily be borne by the country, and more especially by the regime.

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The two sides "may say to themselves, 'We are not prepared to resolve these issues no matter how much pressure the United States brings to bear,'" Obama said.

Obama reiterated that peace is a vital goal, but one that may be beyond reach "even if we are applying all of our political capital."

Obama may be right. But note the implications of no progress between Israel and the Palestinians on political settlement of their dispute:

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The Israeli right has long favored "transfer" (i.e. ethnic cleansing) as a means of dealing both with Palestinian-Israelis and with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Given the extreme-right character of the government of Binyamin Netanyahu, it is no cause for wonder that practical steps are now being taken toward expulsions and deportations of anyone who even peacefully opposes the government’s systematic colonization of the West Bank.

The Guardian summarizes objections of Israeli peace groups who complain that "Palestinians, and any foreigners living in the West Bank," would be liable to deportation within 72 hours if they lack the right permit. "Valid permit" is not defined by the Israelis.

Rory McCarthy writes,

The orders … are worded so broadly such as theoretically allowing the military to empty the West Bank of almost all its Palestinian inhabitants," said the 10 rights groups, which include Ha-Moked, B'Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and Rabbis for Human Rights. Until now the vast majority of Palestinians in the West Bank have not been required to hold a permit just to be present in their homes, the groups say.

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FBI raids on the Hutaree Christian militia have brought to light this formerly little-known group based in Adrian, Michigan.

Unlike the generally secular white supremacist organizations, Hutaree are explicitly Christians. Many seem to be millenarians, expecting the end of time to come soon. Like the so-called Patriot Movement, they are gun nuts. They are said to be organized to kill the Antichrist, and some reports say that they planned violence against American Muslims.

Polling shows that about 1/4 of members of the Republican Party believe that President Obama is the Antichrist, and one fears that Hutaree may agree.

Irregular Times has a good overview of their beliefs, which include secession from the US and return to colonial times, perhaps in preparation for another revolution. (Will they have to register in South Carolina?)  Some are antinomians, rejecting U.S. laws. They fear a liberal 'new world order.'

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The serious policy differences between  Netanyahu and the Obama administration are helping Iran, and reducing pressure on that country.

The Times of London reports that Netanyahu was put firmly in his place by President Obama during his visit to Washington earlier this week. At one point Obama is said to have left Netanyahu for dinner with Michelle and the girls after urging the prime minister to contact him if anything changed.

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Netanyahu mixed together romantic, nationalist cliches with a series of historically false assertions. But even more important was everything he left out of the history, and his citation of his warped and inaccurate history instead of considering laws, rights or common human decency toward others not of his ethnic group.

So here are the reasons that Netanyahu is profoundly wrong, and East Jerusalem does not belong to him.

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The tiff between the U.S. and Israel is less important that the worrisome growth of tension between Palestinians and Israelis as the Israelis have claimed more and more sites sacred to the Palestinians as well. There is talk of a third Intifada or Palestinian uprising.

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There was never any doubt that the U.S. and NATO would win militarily, fairly easily occupying Marjah and nearby Nad Ali. Marjah at 85,000 or so is a city smaller than Ann Arbor, Michigan. The campaign is only significant in a larger social and political context. The questions are:

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In the crowd at Azadi Square, Green Movement supporters who unfurled banners or chanted "down with the dictator" were said by dissident web site Kalemeh.org to have been swiftly arrested by plainclothesmen stationed in the crowds for this purpose.

Interestingly, the authorities did permit former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami to attend the huge rally at Azadi Square. Did these two give undertakings that they and their followers would not attempt to use the occasion to promote protests? Why were they treated so differently from Mousavi, whom they support?

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In an interview on February 2, 2010, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi expressed this disillusionment in an interview in kaleme.org, (translated by the USG Open Source Center). Mousavi said,

During the early years of the Islamic Revolution, the majority of the people, including me, were convinced that the revolution had removed all structures that could lead to despotism and dictatorship. I do not believe in the same anymore. We may once again identify the elements that may lead to dictatorship. Popular resistance against the return of dictatorship is a valuable legacy of the Islamic Revolution.

He went on to denounce press censorship, arbitrary arrests, and the shooting of peaceful protesters in the street.

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On Wednesday morning, a suicide car bomber slammed into a Frontier Corps convoy of vehicles heading to inaugurate a girls school in the village of Kad, in the Lower Dir district of northwest Pakistan, killing seven and wounding at least 130. Among the dead were three U.S. troops in Pakistani dress and a Frontier Corpsman. The others were schoolgirls. The attack occurred as the convoy was reaching two girls' schools, one an elementary school and one a high school rebuilt with U.S. funds. The force of the blast collapsed the high school's walls, but it was empty. Most of the wounded were schoolgirls in the elementary school, hit by flying glass and debris; ironically, given that the Taliban claim to be Muslims, some were having their class on Islam when the shrapnel hit them.

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Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni Arab and member of the three-man presidential council, visited Washington for consultations with President Barack Obama on Tuesday. In an interview with political scientist Marc Lynch, al-Hashimi was clearly upset about the decision of the High Electoral Commission to exclude over 500 candidates, many of them Sunni Arabs, from running in the March 7 parliamentary elections because of their alleged connections to the banned Baath Party (the secular Arab nationalist party that had been taken over by Saddam Hussein in 1979). But he was apparently not sure how much U.S. intervention he wanted in the crisis.

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In Afghanistan, we are increasing our troops and training Afghan Security Forces so they can begin to take the lead in July of 2011, and our troops can begin to come home. We will reward good governance, reduce corruption, and support the rights of all Afghans -- men and women alike. We are joined by allies and partners who have increased their own commitment, and who will come together tomorrow in London to reaffirm our common purpose. There will be difficult days ahead. But I am confident we will succeed.

This passage was one of the few lauded by Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell in the Republican response. But it is among the weaker parts of the speech.

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But Israeli military authorities will not allow any relief planes at all to land in the Gaza Strip (the Israelis destroyed Gaza's airport in 2001).

We cheer when a Haitian child is rescued from the rubble, but ignore the thousands of Gazan children who are suffering malnutrition and being buried by Israeli policy, a policy that is a war crime. I am of course not the only to be struck by this contrast: see also Phil Weiss and others quoted at his essential site.

On Wednesday, 80 international aid groups called upon Israel to change its policy of blockading civilians in Gaza, because it is having severe negative effects on the health of Gazans.

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It is, of course, important that he has repaired the reputation of the U.S. in much of the world and replenished the stock of "soft power" that has been so important a part of U.S. success and leadership. His approval ratings in Western Europe and even in Saudi Arabia were in the 80s and 90s this summer. Veteran journalist Tom Fenton confirms that he remains enormously popular in Europe, and that the public there understands that he could not turn U.S. policy around on a dime.

But Obama's biggest practical foreign policy success has been in keeping to his withdrawal timetable in Iraq. Most observers have paid too little attention to this, among his most important decisions. When he became president, his top generals, including Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Ray Odierno, reportedly came to him and attempted to convince him to modify the withdrawal timeline adopted by the Iraqi parliament as part of the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated shortly before he took office. They did not want U.S. troops to cease patrolling independently in mid-June 2009. They did not want to get all combat troops out by summer 2010. They wanted to finesse the agreement. Reclassify combat troops under some other heading, they said.

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Yemen is on the face of it an unlikely object of contention between Shiite Iran and Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. This country of about 23 million in the southwest corner of the Arabian peninsula is about 53 percent Sunni and 47 percent Zaidi. Most of the Sunnis belong to the rationalist Shafi'i school of jurisprudence rather than to the fundamentalist Hanbali school favored by Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. Many Yemeni Sunnis are traditionalists or even mystical Sufis, schools that the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia hate.

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