Today, June 5, Israel marks a double anniversary: 45 years since the Six-Day War and 30 years since the first Lebanon War. The name of the latter is misleading – the war took place in Lebanon, but it was yet another attempt to solve our "Palestinian problem" by force. Israel conquered most of its neighbor to the north (including the capital), installed a puppet leader as president, and forced the PLO to sail all the way to Tunis. But the plan failed. Five years later, a popular unarmed revolt broke out in Gaza and spread to the West Bank. A…

YNET reports this morning  that the ministerial committee for legislation  has voted that the government would endorse a bill allowing courts to deny "security" prisoners right to meet with their attorney for up to a year. Under current legislation, prisoners may be barred from seeing a lawyer for up to three weeks, although various tricks and chicanery sometimes allow security services go way over this time limit. Still, the bill appears to both legitimise and sharply exacerbate an already unacceptable practice, and to delegate huge authority to prison service officials. Ultra-rightist Israel National News, which runs the report under the…