Ehud Barak is to be approved as Israel's new Defense Minister June 17, following the resignation two days earlier of Amir Peretz in the wake of the routing of Fatah forces from the Gaza Strip and the seizure of control by Hamas there. Israeli and international media are reporting today that Barak's first order of business will be an IDF invasion of Gaza to crush Hamas' military infrastructure, and presumably remove it from power. The UK's Sunday Times quoted senior IDF sources saying the planned Gaza assault will require 20,000 troops to destroy the bulk of Hamas's military capability in a few days. The invasion is to be triggered by Hamas rocket attacks or a resumption of suicide bombings, said the newspaper, claiming Barak has already demanded detailed plans to deploy two armored divisions and an infantry division in Gaza, accompanied by assault drones and F-16 jets. The IDF expects to confront some 12,000 Hamas fighters with arms captured from Fatah in last week's clashes. (Israel Hasbara Committee, Jerusalem Post, June 17)

Calling a nuclear or radiological strike against New York "the ultimate nightmare scenario," New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, speaking at a DC conference on nuclear terrorism June 13, called upon Congress to pay the full $40 million price tag for a ring of radiation detectors on major arteries leading into the city. Calling the "Securing the Cities" Homeland Security pilot program "our best, last defense to keep a nuclear or dirty bomb from being detonated in New York City," Kelly asserted: "Indeed, the worldwide proliferation of the materials needed to make such weapons leads many to believe that such a scenario is a matter of when, not if."

The neo-conservative Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) happily informs us:

The editor of the Syrian daily Al-Watan, Wasah Abd-Raba, accused the Lebanese majority of sacrificing murdered Lebanese MP Walid 'Eido in order to continue its plan to destroy and internationalize Lebanon. He said that it was obvious that the murderer came from within Beirut and had had security immunity—which only the supporters of al-Hariri and the March 14 Forces could provide.

Jonathan "Jack" Idema, the last of three imprisoned US citizens convicted of illegal detention and torture in Afghanistan in 2004, was released June 2, Afghan authorities have confirmed. Idema, a former member of the US Army Special Forces, was arrested by Afghan forces as a vigilante along with US journalist Edward Caraballo and ex-serviceman Brent Bennett in July 2004 after a raid on their house in Kabul revealed eight captive Afghans. Idema said that the Pentagon sanctioned their operations, a claim the US State Department denied. In March, US District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered the State Department and FBI to respond to allegations by Idema that they ordered his torture while in Afghan custody. US government lawyers have asked that the case be dismissed because the Afghan government has granted Idema amnesty. (Jurist, June 13)

Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza, in closing arguments against 27 of the 29 accused in Madrid 3-11 attacks, took time to criticize what he called the "parallel process based on unfounded suspicions" of involvement by the Basque separatist group ETA. In his remarks, he even called for criminal charges for contempt of court against Agustín Díaz de Mera, Director General of Police at the time of the attack and a top promoter of the ETA theory. (Typically Spanish, June 12)

In a "mega-march" extending more than 10 kilometers, thousands of teachers from the Section 22 union and their supporters in the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) marched through southern Mexico's Oaxaca City June 14 to mark the first anniversary of the clash between police and striking teachers that sparked months of political unrest.

Former US ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke has an essay in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, "Defying Orders, Saving Lives: Heroic Diplomats of the Holocaust," which draws an unsettlingly valid analogy to contemporary Iraq. Holbrooke outlines the cases of Sweden's Raoul Wallenberg, Portugal's Aristedes de Sousa Mendes and the USA's Hiram Bingham IV, who all risked their careers and even their lives to help Jews escape Axis Europe in defiance of their own governments' policies. Holbrooke notes that asylum policies are similarly restrictive today, even as Iraq approaches a genocidal situation—and asks where such heroes as Wallenberg are in the face of Iraq's refugee crisis:

One Abdur Raziq contributes June 9 a brief account to the open-posting website Ground Report ("Where You Make the News") of the Taliban crackdown on elements of traditional Pashtun culture which are considered "un-Islamic" in Pakistan's Tribal Areas—Lakhtai dancing boys and "eunuchs." These latter are not necessarily literally castrated, but what we call "trans-gendered" in the West. However, an entry in the Things Asian website informs us that a real eunuch caste known as the hijras survives in India. We have noted before Taliban intolerance of the region's indigenous gay culture and music.