Last week, the veterans action group, VoteVets.org, began circulating by e-mail a video of a 2003 speech to the Council of Foreign Relations during which Republican nominee John McCain suggested the US could "muddle through" in Afghanistan.

For some folks interested in genealogy, tracing one's roots is a stimulating activity. It's immensely interesting and meaningful to learn where one's life started. DNA testing has made it possible to trace one's roots back many generations and there are even free web sites that can help users trace their family history based on a few simple clues.

A regional or local conflict reaches crisis status when there is enough violence to fear continued death and destruction. As a rule, international power brokers pursue their interests by feeding the conflict.

The Obama campaign this week seized on a call by the Iraqi government to link a timetable for withdrawal to any status of forces agreement with the US.

Most people would not have even realized that the 23rd congress of the Socialist International was being held near Athens were it not for the moment when Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak shook the hand of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

The buzz suggesting that Israel is considering a military attack on Iran refuses to recede. The buzz is designed to prepare public opinion for such an adventure. There is, of course, very little genuine discussion here in [Israel] of the fateful issues involved.

The chronic water shortage in the West Bank, resulting from an unfair distribution of water resources shared by the Palestinians and Israel, will be much graver this summer because of this year’s drought.

The world of journalism, like any other profession, can be muddled with a plethora of distractions, self-interests and agendas that certainly do not serve the cause of a free press.

A six-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza was killed by Israeli fire on 12 June. "Medics say the girl was decapitated by a [tank] shell," Associated Press (AP) reported the next day. The Israeli military said the soldiers opened fire in retaliation against "militants launching rockets into Israel."

After one year of a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip, the residents of the beleaguered enclave have some reason for optimism, after a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel went into effect on 19 June at 6am local time.

On June 11, eight year old Hadeel Al-Sumairi was killed when her home in south eastern Gaza was shelled by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Less than a week earlier, eight year old Aya Hamdan Al-Najjar was killed by a rocket fired from an IOF helicopter.

It is customary to run into brazenly racist commentary coming out of the U.S. liberals and right-wingers alike, especially when it comes to the question of oil.

Five Palestinian landowners and human rights organizations Yesh Din and B'Tselem claim in first petition of its kind: Ofra is an illegal outpost built mostly on private land.

Hundreds of people Saturday, June 7 along Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard to Meir Garden to protest the 41st year of the Israeli occupation and the incessant rocket attacks on the country's southern region.

A group of Israeli human rights activists has begun a project to help Palestinians in the West Bank, who have in the past had land taken away by settlers, regain what they say are their property rights.

The generals, who form the hegemonic political-military think-tank in Israel’s perpetual state of emergency, are in the media, explaining that Israel as a matter of national survival must teach our enemies a lesson that they never will forget. Deterrence will thereby be restored.

The occupation of the Palestinian territories is exacting a high price from Israel, a local think-tank said. "The prolonged conflict with the Palestinians is a millstone around Israel's neck," Adva, a social justice NGO, said in a 4 June report, The cost of the occupation.

Prof. Gilbert Achcar of the School of Oriental and Asian Studies in London has made a unique contribution to the ongoing “one-state or two-states” debate in a recent wide ranging interview to Mesele, a progressive periodical in Turkey.

Three days ago, on 1 June, Hadeel Abu Kwaik was sitting in her computer lab at Al-Azhar University in Gaza looking worried, and perplexed. Today, having just been told her Fulbright scholarship has been reinstated, she says she is “Happy but still worried. I’m still not sure we will [all] be able to leave for the US.”

Mothers in Gaza hold a weekly vigil at the Red Cross, to highlight the number of Gazan men and women held in Israeli jails, and to demand the right to visit their jailed husbands, sons and daughters.