The content of this diary has been deleted due to this diarist being a known sockpuppet of a previously multiply banned user. From now on, diaries made by known sockpuppets of previously banned users may be removed at the discretion of site administrators, whether those posts are inflammatory or not. -- Hunter

In fact, the Green Party supports equal rights for everyone, only it’s the Palestinians who are getting screwed over right now. That’s why the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign is holding an event today, Monday 16 April 2007, with none other than Joel Kovel, the Brooklyn psychoanalyst turned peace activist and Green Party luminary. If everyone recalls, Kovel lost out to Ralph Nader in 2000 as the Green’s presidential candidate.

The art of political language, as George Orwell observed, is to make falsehoods sound truthful and to deny voice to those without power. There are few practitioners of this art more highly skilled than the government of Israel.

As the military occupier of the Palestinian territories for the past 40 years, Israel has managed to represent itself as the beleaguered victim of terrorism in its conflict with the Palestinian people. At the same time, the Israeli government, through its influence in America, has discredited and even silenced those voices inside the Palestinian territories with a far different story about terrorism and its victims. Truth, however, is sometimes able to prevail despite the efforts of those with power to prevent truth from gaining voice.

Was Pelosi's trip to Damascus the beginnings of a Middle East peace? Certainly the Council for the National Interest (CNI) believes so and is pushing for a petition directed at Congress to support the peace intentions of Pelosi’s trip to Syria, in spite of the counter efforts by AIPAC, the Israel Lobby, to push for the opposite.

As is widely known, AIPAC, which supports an extremist Zionist agenda in Israel, has consistently supported a US-Israel based confrontation with Syria and Iran, in spite of the failed invasion of Lebanon last summer. On this side of the Atlantic, AIPAC assumes that, perhaps correctly, given the continuing rhetoric and plans of Cheney-Bush and even Blair, the Neocons are still in charge of Whitehouse foreign policy. In spite of the flight and resignations of top dog Neocons from the Pentagon, advisors behind the scenes such as Richard Perle and Henry Kissinger still retain a powerful voice in the administration.

Muted reaction to US Mid-East peace push was the title of this BBC story this morning, after Katya Adler spoke with an Israeli journalist, who dismissed US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after she left Israel after her seventh visit to the region over the last few months.

A lot of talk, little to show for it, is the accepted wisdom amongst most Israelis and Palestinians. "Diplomacy, dishmomacy," he said.

When Mark Anthony claimed that he came not to praise Caesar, but to bury him, and then went on to praise him anyway, is that not where Ehud Olmert, Israel’s Caesar stands today?

With only two percent of the Israeli public saying they trust Olmert, he is probably dead in the water as far as Israeli politics is concerned. Two-thirds say they want him to resign.

But is he that dead? Is a peace deal something that may save his dying regime?

This morning on the BBC website, this headline stood out:

Israel hints at peace concessions

How many times have we heard Olmert’s "big and painful" concessions speech? This time it was delivered to a bunch of kids.