MEA strikes over missing worker

From the AP:

Workers at Lebanon’s national carrier have briefly stopped work at Beirut’s airport, protesting an employee’s mysterious disappearance.

Wednesday’s one-hour-long strike by Middle East Airlines didn’t affect flights.

Computer engineer Joseph Sader went missing while on his way to work at Middle East Airlines two weeks ago. His family claims he was kidnapped by gunmen near the airport — located in a Shiite Muslim stronghold — but motives are unclear.

The government says it’s investigating.

Meanwhile, police say MEA pilot Ghassan Mekdad was found shot dead Wednesday in his car on a Beirut street. Authorities don’t believe the shooting is related to the carrier.

The two incidents come as tensions rise ahead of parliamentary elections in June.

What's wrong with the Israeli left?

Natalie Adler and Ron Oppenheim have written an excellent piece in Socialist Worker:

The Israeli left accepts the “necessity and legitimacy” of Israel’s existence.

The same people who will campaign for peace, want a halt to aggression towards the Palestinian civilians, and advocate returning the occupied territories also accept the lie that Hamas, the Palestinian resistance ­movement, is “backward and must be dealt with”.

So if Palestinian civilians are killed during a military operation it is because Hamas uses them as “human shields”, or because they “operate in densely populated” areas. This is why many left wing intellectuals in Israel supported the war on Gaza, as they did the 2006 war on Lebanon.

Many on the left would genuinely like to see Palestinians having freedom and a livelihood – but the moment that Israel’s existence comes into question, they are swept up by nationalism... more