BY KHALID AMAYREH

On the 64th Nakba anniversary, Palestinians lose hope of statehood

As a clear extreme right trend continues to shape Israeli politics and society, and as the international community proves powerless to prevent Israel from killing the last vestiges of hope for a workable and dignified settlement to the Arab- Israeli conflict, many Palestinians are losing hope for the creation of a true, viable state, one that would have East Jerusalem as its capital. Palestinian officials, while continuing to invoke the mantra of the two-state solution in public, privately acknowledge that the creation of a genuine Palestinian state in the West Bank is becoming workable with each passing day.A few weeks ago, Ahmed Qurei, who occupied several important portfolios in the Palestinian Authority (PA) during Yasser Arafat's era, recognised that "it is probably no longer possible to create the kind of state that we want."

He continued: "Now we have to choose between two stark choices: Either we settle for a worthless state made of hapless ghettoes and miserable slums, and surrounded by Jewish settlements on all directions; or struggle for one unitary and democratic state where Jews and Arabs can live equally in all of Mandate Palestine from the Mediterranean to the River Jordan."

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By Ismail Salami

Imagine a world plunged in darkness and extreme cold with the sunlight screened off by a thick pall of dust cloud. Imagine a world flung back into chaos. This is an image conceived of a world abandoned to dereliction by doomsday weapons.

According to Samson Option theory, Israel reserves the option to retaliate massively with nuclear weapons when its existence is gravely endangered by the military might of another country although the regime refuses to admit to the possession of a huge nuclear arsenal. As a first sign of a nuclear threat, in the 1973 Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) War considered to be the fiercest Arab-Israeli conflict, when Arab forces were about to defeat Israeli forces, the Zionist Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered that 13 nuclear bombs be readied to be used either by missiles or by aircraft. And President Nixon agreed to the Israeli demand. In fact, the Samson Option is a horrific plan drawn up by Israel leaders to take down the Middle East and the entire world if necessary and proclaimed 'kosher'. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Seymour M. Hersh hypothesized that "Should war break out in the Middle East again and should the Syrians and the Egyptians break through again as they did in 1973 [Yom Kippur War], or should any Arab nation fire missiles again at Israel, as Iraq did [in the 1991 Gulf War], a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong possibility."

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by Stephen Lendman

Israel treats Palestinian prisoners horrifically. Cruel and unusual punishment is policy. Detention conditions include torture, intimidation, and other abusive practices.

Hunger strikes first began in 1968. Nablus Prison detainees initiated them. Numerous others followed. At issue is abusive treatment and appalling prison conditions.

Medical neglect causes sickness, disease and death. Last summer, the Palestinian Center for Defending Detainees (PCDD) reported hundreds of seriously ill prisoners. They're affected by heart disease, cancer, kidney failure, pleurisy, chronic pain, and other illnesses too grave to ignore.

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