A mitzvah this ain't. From Politico -

A White House official told Jewish leaders on a conference call today that the U.S. will use its veto in the U.N. Security Council, if necessary, to block the international body from acting on a report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, according to two people on the call.

[Jay V edit: it's the 575-page Goldstone report by a fact-finding mission organised by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council.]

The National Security Council's Dan Shapiro said President Obama assured the Israeli Prime Minister yesterday of the U.S stand on the Goldstone Report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has been a source of major concern for the Israelis. Shapiro said the U.S. agrees with the Israeli view that the report is one-sided, and would block a referral to the International Criminal Court.

The U.S. pledge comes as the Israeli side was already declaring victory in avoiding a total freeze on settlements, and it's likely to further alienate Palestinian leaders whom the U.S. is simultaneously trying to lure to the negotiating table.

The JTA, which broke the news, has more background on the subject.

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Cross posted at Blazing Indiscretions and The Peace Tree.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.

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(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

Killing puts abortion foes on defense
In worship he found his cause
In prayer he found his score
In murder he found his god

Obama hopeful on Mid-East peace
How simple it must sound
This wistful wishful flight among the fragile beams
Of stone and foul hatred.

Search Is On for Wreckage of Missing Air France Jet
Among protea, cycads, and pincushions and the stunning breath of petals
They surely float. The jagged Drakensberg Peaks, like broken teeth
Shimmering edges, dark lines, not bones, but fractured meadows.

Judge: Release Gitmo Docs
We say we’d die for our beloved country,
We proudly wave her colors and cry
At the thought of promised freedom,
Say we’d descend into the grave of valor-
But what of our torture?

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Guardian (19/03/09)

Striking testimony has emerged from Israeli soldiers involved in the Gaza war in which they describe shooting unarmed civilians, sometimes under orders from their officers.

The testimony, published in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz today, gives a rare insight into how Israeli soldiers fought the war on the ground; reinforces Palestinian accounts of disproportionate Israeli force; and sharply contradicts the Israeli military's official version of events.

Haaretz

Another squad leader from the same brigade told of an incident where the company commander ordered that an elderly Palestinian woman be shot and killed; she was walking on a road about 100 meters from a house the company had commandeered.

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