Palestinian sources revealed a letter sent by Obama that outlines carrots and sticks approach to get Mahmoud Abbas to go to direct and endless negotiations so as to keep the disastrous Oslo cover for the occupation going a few more years. This revealed once and for all that Washington is indeed Israeli-occupied territory.

Despite our political differences, we can only feel pity for Abu Mazen hose two open choices are both bad: a) negotiate while Israel continues to colonize and ethnically cleanse what remains of the occupied areas and thus lose what little credibility remains among the Palestinian public, OR b) insist on reference to International Law (and thus a settlement freeze) and lose hundreds of millions in funding and lucrative positions of power over the now de facto self-rule areas.

In either case there will be no end to the occupation and no real or sovereign Palestinian state in the foreseeable future. Will he choose a third route that preserves dignity and self-respect and give up the charade of Oslo and its trappings that he started (and convinced Arafat to follow for years until Israel killed him when he hesitated)? (there are ways to do this since an agreement signed under duress and especially one that violates basic international law is null and void anyway and does not remove the rights of native people even when someone representing them signs it).

Will PLO reclaim its name sake as Palestine Liberation Organization or degenerate into the Palestinian Leftover Officials? Will the Palestinian people realize that they hold the keys to their own future and that salvation will not come from anyone else?

We lost our friend Art Gish, a longtime active volunteer member of Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron. Art was 70 years old and died in a farming accident with his tractor in Athens, Ohio. Art was a graduate of Manchester College and Bethany Theological Seminary. He is the author of The New Left and Christian Radicalism (Eerdmans, 1970), Beyond the Rat Race (Herald Press. 1972), Living in Christian Community (Herald Press, 1979), and Hebron Journal: Stories of Nonviolent Peacemaking (Herald Press, 2001). Art Gish has been part of Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron since 1995, getting in the way of Israeli military and settler violence against Palestinian
civilians. http://rosemarieberger.com/2010/../ christian-peacemaker-art-gish-dies-at-
70/

Art is survived by his wife Peggy Gish (herself an activist in Iraq and Palestine and author of "Iraq: A journey of hope and Peace" ). For an interview of Art and Peggy by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, please go to http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/10/  five_years_after_helping_to_expose We will miss this gentle man who acted on his principles.

He is an example for us to follow! You can purchase his book on Hebron from the Mennonite Publishing Network: http://store.mpn.net/productdetails.cfm?PC=271 One year has passed since the death of Shafiq Al-Hout, a principled Palestinian leader: A video biography 'It all started in Jaffa' is here http://www.youtube.com/shafiqhbio And Text biography at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafiq_al-Hout

The missing media headlines this week: Israeli forces killed 1 worker, injured 4 protesters and 1 journalist, abducted 21 civilians, conducted 25 major incursions, continued to fire at farmers, etc
http://ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/missingheadlines.html

The US Army reported that 32 soldiers committed suicide in June. Dozens of others were killed. Wikileaks published US documents that basically shouldmake every American question the illegal wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, the US media conveniently ignores all this and obediently publish the lies of their Zionist masters instead of exposing those who profit from wars and mayhem.

Preparations for WWIII: Crashed Israeli helicopter drilled perilous strikes on Iran-style mountain tunnels http://www.debka.com/article/8940/ The Israeli government extended for two more decades the closure on the information from 50 and 60 years ago that shows it had committed ethnic cleansing, war crimes, crimes against humanity, deception and lies (and ofcourse still doing it). See 'A state afraid of its past' by Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/a-state-afraid-of-its-past-1.30 4711 (make sure links are intact)


Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home www.qumsiyeh.org
Professor, Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities Chairman of the Board, Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People www.pcr.ps

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