Middle East Follow

On the week before Christmas, Bethlehem 2006 with its apartheid wall came to the streets of Lewisham in a lively piece of street theatre devised by members of Lewisham Stop the War and South East London Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

A group of anti-war musicians has released a cover version of Edwin Starr’s classic War (What Is It Good For?) as a download-only single – with the aim of taking their message to the top of the charts in the new year.

Beirut has become the focus of a new movement that is challenging the US-backed government and the political system that put them in power.

The Iraq war was notable for the prominent presence of a new, non-Western media organisation – the Qatar-based Arabic channel Al Jazeera. What role did it play during the invasion? And did the presence of an alternative Arabic point of view have any substantial effect on the TV coverage in the West?

A confrontation was looming this week between the US backed Lebanese government of Fouad Siniora and the opposition anti-imperialist bloc.

Pierre Gemayel, Lebanon’s minister of industry and a scion of one of the country’s most powerful Christian families, was shot dead in a Beirut suburb on Tuesday 22 November.

George Bush and Tony Blair’s chatter about new sweeping peace initiatives in the Middle East will come as little comfort to the 1.4 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. Israel, the US’s ally in the region, has unleashed another bloody assualt on civilians in the besieged territory.

As could have been expected, the Israeli political system moved to the right as a result of the last Lebanon war.

The Samidoun solidarity network has done a damage assessment of 70 villages across south Lebanon. The figures reveal the shocking extent of Israel’s war.

With the people of Lebanon still reeling from Israel’s brutal bombardment which killed over a thousand civilians, let us not forget that Israel’s onslaught against the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank has continued unabated. Since 25 June, when Palestinian militants took an Israeli soldier prisoner, some 240 Palestinians have been killed, of whom at least 197 were civilians and including 48 children.

The warmongers have been caught red handed again - this time using lies to spin the case for a war on Iran.

The next few months will be decisive ones for the "war on terror" as the US steps up its pressure on Iran. The Iranian nuclear issue is back on the agenda, with the passing of another United Nations (UN) deadline and another "negative report". This external pressure has implications for politics inside Iran.