"Safe Passage": How to get from Gaza to the West Bank

The Israeli human rights organization Gisha, which fights for the rights of movement of Gazans, has launched a new computer game designed to illustrate the nearly insurmountable obstacles that Israel places in the path of Gazan students who want to study in the West Bank, merchants who want to do business there, and so on. The animated game (which interestingly is supported in part by funds from the European Union) can be accessed here, and is loaded with actual Israeli documents used to prevent the movement of Palestinians between one part and the other of what eventually should be their unified state.

I've linked many times before to Gisha and the important work it is doing. Please check it out and also consider supporting them.

Wikileaks and the truth. I hope that readers of this blog are following recent events concerning Wikileaks, Pfc. Brian Manning, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and the planned release later this week of yet another video showing U.S. forces mistakenly killing civilians (this time in Afghanistan, the village of Garani.) A good summary can be found in this Washington Post article. (Glenn Greenwald also recently penned a column on this topic for Salon.com.) We've really gotten to the point where nearly all so-called "classified" information is kept secret not primarily because it would help the "enemy" but because it would help opponents of U.S. foreign policy make their case. Indeed, perhaps that has almost been true.