Speaking with a forked tongue

In the last days Israeli PM Olmert met with Palestinian President Abbas and even announced a number of so-called concessions in a move said to be aimed in bringing about some sort of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The Hamas leadership condemned the lastest moves as being little else than the Israelis duping the Palestinians.

It looks like Hamas were spot on. In a move which can only be regarded as madness and spitting into the face of the Palestinians, the IHT reports today:

"Israel has approved the construction of a new settlement in the occupied West Bank for the first time in a decade, according to the Israeli Defense Ministry and settler groups speaking Tuesday.

The announcement comes days after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel met for a first substantive meeting with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and is bound to embarrass the Palestinian leader, already being criticized by political rivals in Hamas for carrying out an Israeli and American agenda with little to show for it."

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

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#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas stopped him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed behind his back into their patrol car, where they say he shot himself in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story, says in an interview that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?

Mahler's Prodigal Son

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