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Bush: Foreign Fighters Coming from Syria into Iraq "Are Trying to Kill Our Folks" (White House)
    President Bush said Tuesday at the White House: "The Syrian government can do a lot more to prevent the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq. These people are coming from Syria into Iraq and killing a lot of innocent people. They're killing - they're trying to kill our folks, as well."
    "The Syrian leader must understand we take his lack of action seriously. And the government is going to become more and more isolated as a result of two things: one, not being cooperative with the Iraqi government, in terms of securing Iraq; and two, not being fully transparent about what they did in Lebanon."

    See also U.S. Planes Strike Near Syria Border (Reuters/ Washington Post)
    U.S. aircraft struck insurgent targets in the Iraqi town of Karabila, near the Syrian border, more than 10 times on Tuesday, a hospital source said.

Palestinian Killed by Rival Clan, Not IDF - Margot Dudkevitch (Jerusalem Post)
    A 19-year-old Palestinian, allegedly shot by IDF soldiers during confrontations between Palestinians and troops in the Hebron area, was shot by other Palestinians during fights among local clans, an IDF inquiry suggested Tuesday.
    Earlier Tuesday, IDF troops on patrol in Taffuh near Hebron were attacked by a crowd of about 500 people hurling stones and concrete blocks. After an IDF soldier was lightly wounded in the head, the soldiers fired rubber bullets and teargas to disperse the crowd.
    The army found that no live ammunition had been used by IDF troops during the confrontation, and that there had also been fierce battles between rival clans in the area.
    Also Tuesday, Palestinian gunmen opened fire at soldiers staffing the Harawa checkpoint outside Nablus. No injuries were reported.

    See also Palestinians Place Bomb Near Rachel's Tomb - Efrat Weiss (Ynet News)
    Palestinians placed a pipe bomb near Rachel's Tomb, south of Jerusalem, on Tuesday.

New Player in Gaza - Amira Hass (Ha'aretz)
    The most courageous Palestinian-Gazan organization to arise in recent years is the independent workers' committees, established in December 2004 to demand the fair distribution of PA income.
    In recent weeks they have been waging an impassioned struggle involving protest vigils, demonstrations, and attempts at negotiations with senior government officials.
    They are all workers who worked in Israel and did not depend on the patriarchal-government system, as opposed to government clerks who feel a personal obligation to the establishment.
    Work in Israel created a sense of camaraderie among tens of thousands of Gazans who improved their economic situation without taking favors or charity from anyone.

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Hotheads Fumble Passing of the Torch - Editorial (Chicago Sun-Times)

• The first hours of independence for the fledgling Palestinian state in Gaza were lit by the glare of burning synagogues. After 38 years of occupation, the Israeli army pulled back Monday from territory taken in the 1967 Six-Day War. They did so in the name of peace, but it cannot be a good sign that the Palestinians chose to mark the event with gunfire and arson, torching the religious sites which Israel, in an agonizing decision, left standing.
• Israel was unwilling, in a world where synagogues have been so regularly destroyed, to be responsible for demolishing houses of prayer, despite the certainty that the Palestinians would tear them down. The worst expectations were soon realized - after the final Israeli soldier left, a mob burned and desecrated these houses of worship.
• Of course the Palestinian Authority stood by and did nothing, and, sad to say, the mob's rampage and the PA's inaction met zero outrage from a world insensate to the desecration of Jewish sites.
• The responsible path would be to treat Gaza as the dry run to a larger Palestinian state and to recognize that, with the absence of Israelis, it will become indefensible to continue to blame Israel for all their woes, and so begin the difficult task of running a functional state, tapping into the enormous international aid awaiting an operating Palestinian government.
• The torching of synagogues, the gunfire, the incendiary claims of Hamas and Islamic Jihad that this is the first step in conquering all of Israel might feel good to the egos of Palestinians. But they are not the road that will bring later success.