Susan Abulhawa

Israeli hypocrite Naftali Bennett: "There is no mercy for the
murderers of children. This is the time for action, not words."

The bodies of three Israeli settlers who went missing on June 12th were found in a hastily dug shallow grave in Halhul, north of Hebron.

Since the teens went missing from Gush Etzion, a Jewish-only colony in the West Bank, Israel has besieged the 4 million Palestinians who already live under its thumb, storming through towns, ransacking homes and civil institutions, conducting night raids on families, stealing property, kidnapping, injuring, and killing. Warplanes were dispatched to bomb Gaza, again and repeatedly, destroying more homes and institutions and carrying out extrajudicial executions. Thus far, over 570 Palestinians have been kidnapped and imprisoned, most notably a Samer Issawi, the Palestinian who went on a 266-day hunger strike in protest of a previous arbitrary detention. At least 10 Palestinians have been killed, including at least three children, a pregnant woman, and a mentally ill man. Hundreds have been injured, thousands terrorized. Universities and social welfare organizations were ransacked, shut down, their computers and equipment destroyed or stolen, and both private and public documents confiscated from civil institutions. This wonton thuggery is official state policy conducted by its military and does not include the violence to persons and properties perpetuated by paramilitary Israeli settlers, whose persistent attacks against Palestinian civilians have also escalated in the past weeks. And now that the settlers are confirmed dead, Israel has vowed to exact revenge. Naftali Bennet, Economy Minister said, "There is no mercy for the murderers of children. This is the time for action, not words."

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James Cogan

More of the same: out-and-out Talmudic terror against the Palestinians.
It's been like this ever since the ethnic cleansing in 1948, the Nakba.

Tens of thousands of people across Israel and internationally assembled yesterday to mourn the three teenagers whose bodies were discovered on Monday in a shallow grave not far from where they disappeared on June 12. Eyal Yifrah, 19, and Naftali Fraenkel and Gilad Shaer, both 16, were kidnapped and murdered as they hitchhiked back from a religious school in Kfar Etzion, one of the illegal Israeli settlements in the Gush Etzion region of the Palestinian West Bank territory.

The Israeli regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has seized on the tragic death of the young men as the pretext for escalating its aggression against the Palestinian people and strengthening Israel’s grip on the occupied territories. The Israeli government has declared that the Islamist party Hamas is responsible for the murders, without providing any evidence to substantiate the charge, which is denied by Hamas.

Early Tuesday, the West Bank homes of two Hamas members accused of involvement in the kidnapping were blown up by Israeli troops—the first such punitive demolitions since 2005. In Gaza, Palestinian sources said Israeli jets had carried out many as 40 air strikes since the bodies were found.

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Paul Craig Roberts

The remarks below are excerpted from President Putin’s meeting with Russia’s ambassadors on July 1, 2014. - Putin damns Washington’s puppet president of Ukraine, an usurped position resulting from the overthrow of a democratically elected president, for taking “the path of violence which cannot lead to peace.” Putin’s remarks are simultaneous English translations as Putin speaks in Russian. Such translations are seldom good, but are usually adequate to convey the content.

■ “Unfortunately, Ukrainian President Poroshenko has made the decision to resume military actions, and we – meaning myself and my colleagues in Europe – could not convince him that the way to reliable, firm and long-term peace can’t lie through war. Previously, Petro Poroshenko had no direct relation to orders to take military action. Now he has taken on this responsibility in full. Not only military, but also more importantly, politically.”

■ “On Monday [June 30], I spoke with France, Germany and Ukraine via telephone. I stressed the need to prolong the ceasefire and the creation of a reliable mechanism for monitoring compliance with the cease fire and that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) should play an active role. I offered that checkpoints on the Russian side of the Ukrainian border could be monitored by representatives of Ukraine and by OSCE to insure joint control of the border.”

■ “Everything that’s going on in Ukraine is of course the internal business of Ukrainian government, but we are painfully sorry that civilians die. In my opinion, there is a deliberate attempt by Ukraine to eliminate representatives of the press. It concerns both Russian and foreign journalists. The killing of journalists is absolutely unacceptable.”

■ “I hope pragmatism will prevail, that the West will get rid of its hegemonic ambitions and desire to arrange the world according to its preferences. I hope instead that the West will start building relations based on equal rights, mutual respect and good will toward others and respect for the interests of other countries.”

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