Israellycool

I recently downloaded iTunes 7, and so far have not experienced any of the well publicized problems associated with this latest version.

One of the neat new features is the rankings for each of the categories. The Israellycool podcast is listed in the Religion & Spirituality: Judaism category, and is currently languishing in 97th place (it was in 25th place on Friday).

I would very much like to expose the podcast to more listeners, and a higher ranking would probably not hurt achieve this end. So if you haven’t already subscribed, just click on the Add to iTunes icon under my koala podcast banner. And feel free to also post a review in iTunes (apparently the more reviews you have, the better your chances at being featured on the front podcast page).

I know. I am so demanding, and have not been good lately at getting a podcast out on a weekly basis. But perhaps, with a few more thousand listeners, I will take my obligations more seriously!

Most Likely to Have Caught His Privates in His Zipper Award:

Winner:

Honorable mention:

Most in Need of a Good Dentist Award

Winner:

Honorable mention:

I’ll Have What He’s Having Award

Worst Effigy of the Pope Award

Winner:

Worst Translation into English Award

Winner:

As Rosh Hashana approaches, I would like to wish all of my Jewish readers a Shana Tova U’metuka.

Posting to resume Monday.

…goes to Time for this doozy:

The Many Obstacles to an Israeli Attack on Iran

It has taken out an Iranian nuclear reactor before, but Israel doesn’t have a lot of good options this time around.

Media Backspin pointed this out a couple of days ago, and they still haven’t realized the mistake and corrected it.

They are not just doctoring and staging photographs, folks.

Armored vehicles that were given to foreign news agencies operating in the country with the authorization of the State of Israel, may be used by hostile groups to carry out terror attacks against Israel, Director of the Government Press Office Danny Seaman warned in a letter addressed to Shin Bet Head Yuval Diskin.

On August 27 an Israel Defense Forces helicopter hit an armored vehicle that belonged to the Reuters news agency in Gaza. According to Seaman, the incident illustrated the failures in overseeing the use of armored vehicles granted to the foreign media agencies with the permission of the State.

The vehicle’s presence in Gaza in itself constituted a violation of its license terms, and moreover, the jeep was carrying only Palestinians ‚Äì one with links to Hamas who was not a Reuters employee.

Licenses for armored vehicles are granted by the State to foreign news agencies in Israel for the purpose of carrying out journalistic missions in the West Bank and Gaza. The State has even agreed to extend the permits for more than the one year stipulated by the law, on the condition that the license holder is a foreign national and that he alone will drive the car.
 
“To the best of our knowledge, all of the vehicles’ owners have been violating the conditions for a long time now, despite our requests. This is not the first time we are warning that these vehicles will be used by hostile agents to carry out a terror attack against Israel. The recent incident in Gaza only illustrates the danger,” Seaman wrote the Shin Bet chief.

They better launch an investigation and deal with this problem, or not be surprised when we launch something else at their vehicles.

Best-selling Turkish novelist, Elif Shafak, and Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

(Inspired by Fark)

Let’s check up on our UN peacekeeping friends and see what they are up to..

A Spanish U.N. peacekeeper shakes the hand of a Lebanese Hezbollah supporter wearing a yellow T-shirt and carrying a Hezbollah flag as he marches in the southern village of Kfar Kila, Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006, on his way to attend the massive victory rally that will take place in Beirut Friday afternoon. Hundreds of Hezbollah supporters from across southern Lebanon began marching on foot toward Beirut for a major rally planned Friday to showcase the group’s insistence it won’t disarm. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

I think this photo speaks for itself.

Update: Come to think of it, it puts this photo into a whole new perspective:

The home secretary, John Reid, was today heckled by protesters as he made a speech in east London urging Muslim parents to monitor their children.

 

The first interruption came from Abu Izadeen, who shouted that Muslims were being subjected to “state terrorism by the British police”.

 

His intervention came as Mr Reid asked Muslim parents to keep a close watch on their children to prevent them from being radicalised by Islamist extremists.

 

Mr Izadeen, who accused the home secretary of being an “enemy” of Islam, is said to be a former member of the banned Islamist group al-Ghurabaa, a successor organization to Omar Bakri Mohammed’s al-Muhajiroun group. He denies membership of the group. He was led from the building by police and stewards.

Also known as Omar Brooks, Mr Izadeen is a Muslim convert from east London. He told the meeting he was “absolutely furious” and asked how Mr Reid could “dare” come to a Muslim area after so many Muslims - “over a thousand” - had been arrested.

 

“John Reid, Tony Blair and George Bush’s crusade can all go to hell,” he shouted. “You are an enemy of Islam and Muslims. Shame on all of us for sitting down and listening to him.

 

“They are going to come in the morning to your house … they are going to kick your door down when you’re in bed with your wife, then drag you from your own bed.”

 

In response, Mr Reid said: “I was making the very simple point that however sensitive these issues are, we must never allow ourselves to be intimidated or shouted down.”

—-

Mr Reid continued his speech, saying terrorists were waging a “violent and indiscriminate war”. He warned that communities needed to be more aware of signs of terrorist activity.

 

A second protester interrupted the home secretary a few minutes later. He held up placards saying “John Reid Go To Hell” and shouted: “Enemy of Islam and the Muslims.”

 

The man was ejected a few minutes later and emerged from the venue holding several signs, one of which said: “John Reid, you will pay!”

 

Mr Reid told the audience in Leytonstone to be vigilant in looking for the “telltale signs” of brainwashing in their children.

 

The home secretary denied that efforts to tackle Islamist terrorism amounted to a war against Islam.

 

He said the battle against extremism was not a conflict of religion but one between terrorists and most modern civilised societies, adding that many Muslims had been victims of terrorism.

 

Mr Reid told the audience that terrorist fanatics were on the hunt for vulnerable young people to recruit to their cause.

 

“There is no nice way of saying this,” he said. “These fanatics are looking to groom and brainwash children, including your children, for suicide bombings. Grooming them to kill themselves in order to murder others.

 

“Look for the telltale signs now and talk to them before their hatred grows and you risk losing them forever. In protecting our families, we are protecting our community.”

“Jerusalem. There is no such city!” the Jerusalem municipality said in the English-language version of a sightseeing brochure it had published originally in Hebrew.

 

The correct translation: “Jerusalem. There is no city like it!”

 

Carrying a photograph of the brochure, Israel’s Maariv newspaper said on Wednesday tens of thousands of flyers had been distributed before city hall realised its mistake.

Aerosmith lead singer (and current world record holder for world’s largest mouth), Steve Tyler, has shown that KISS lead singer (and current world record holder for world’s largest tongue), Gene Simmons, is not the only mensch in rock.

Steven Tyler, lead singer of the rock band Aerosmith, dedicated the group’s hit song “Dream On” to abducted soldier Ehud Goldwasser at the request of Golwasser’s wife Karnit during a New York concert this week.

Hezbollah fighters kidnapped Goldwasser along with fellow Israel Defense Forces reserve soldier Eldad Regev on July 12. The abduction triggered a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Karnit is in New York attending meetings at the annual UN General Assembly this week, together with her husband’s family and Regev’s brother.

In an interview with Army Radio, Karnit Goldwasser said that her husband loves Aerosmith, and that she was moved to tears when Tyler dedicated the song to the abducted soldiers.

She said that she would like a video recording of the concert in order to show to her husband upon his return.

No doubt this latest act of awesome goodness will fuel the rumors (mostly emanating from neo-nazi/anti-Semitic sites) that Steve is a member of the tribe, like his bandmate, drummer Joey Kramer. Come to think of it, maybe that is what he means when he sings Girl, before I met you I was F.I.N.E. Fine….

In any event, thank you Steve for one hell of a nice gesture.

Update: David writes:

There’s a magazine called Lifestyles that profiles people with Jewish heritages. A little while ago they profiled Liv Tyler

http://www.lifestylesmagazine.com/Lifestyle_11-2004_001.html

Well it doesn’t include enough of the article, but it’s because her father is Jewish. (IN one of those oddities, she had long thought that her father was Todd Rundgren who was a long time boyfriend of her mother. I forget how she found out who her real father was.) So it’s not just neo-nazi websites.

What are our intrepid UN peacekeepers up to today?

They’re practicing their skills in observing and taking photos.

Tomorrow they begin honing their renowned skills in videotaping.

Last week, Frontpage Magazine ran a report on the ISM’s terror connections, which included pictures - like the below - of ISM members holding guns while posing with terrorists.

Now the ISM have responded.

Recently, photos were posted on the internet showing five foreigners posing with members of the Palestinian security services in Jericho while holding police weapons, along with the claim that four of the foreigners were volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The article accompanying the photos also claims that the fifth, unnamed foreigner with the obscured face in the photos went undercover in order to try and sabotage those, such as the ISM, who support Palestinian non-violent resistance.At the time the photographs were taken, these individuals had not yet become ISM volunteers. They went to Jericho of their own volition without coordinating or discussing their plans with the International Solidarity Movement. They had not attended ISM’s mandatory intensive non-violence training and were new to the country. The fifth foreigner encouraged them to join him in the photographs and have their pictures taken holding guns. These individuals regrettably followed his advice.

We have discovered the real name of the fifth foreigner to be Paul Cinato from Britain, though he gave his surname as Andrews at the time. The article is filled with the now standard fabrications and distortions - too many to list in full. Possibly the most outrageous claim is that two of the foreigners in the photos are now in Israeli custody, which is totally untrue. This article is part of a long standing campaign to slander ISM and destroy non-violent Palestinian resistance by spreading false information. See previous statements on the ISM site.

None of the individuals photographed ever took part in any violent activity. As non-violence is one of the three basic principles of ISM, they would have been required to leave if they had done so. At ISM’s training in Palestine, as a condition for joining ISM in Palestine, all activists are required to commit to supporting only non-violent resistance. These volunteers did so. At the training, all activists are also instructed never to touch any weapon, or even anything that resembles a weapon.

Dave, a volunteer from Ireland featured in the photos, said: “Paul wanted his photo taken with the guys in the prison, then one of them gave him a gun to hold and they also offered them to us to hold for photos. We were a bit reluctant to take them because of the simple fact that they were guns - not because pictures of future ISMers holding guns could cause trouble. After some encouragement from Paul and the Palestinians we took them and thought no more about it.”

Upon learning of this incident, ISM activists informed these individuals that touching weapons violates ISM’s policies and that they would not be permitted to volunteer unless they agreed never to handle weapons. All except Cinato apologized and deleted their photographs. Cinato did not attend ISM training and subsequently disappeared. Following their training, the others worked diligently and without incident with the ISM and Palestinian communities in support of non-violent direct action. According to Dave: “We are deeply sorry for the trouble this has caused. We are of course completely committed to non-violence and realize that we made a terrible mistake.”

ISM remains committed to supporting and engaging with Palestinian communities in non-violent resistance. ISM intends to re-examine its information resources and training in order to make clear to everyone intending to volunteer in the future that handling weapons in any situation is unacceptable. For more information about the ISM, visit www.palsolidarity.org.

The contentions that the ISMers involved had not yet become ISM volunteers, went to Jericho of their own volition without coordinating or discussing their plans with the ISM, had not attended ISM’s mandatory intensive non-violence training, and were new to the country, are doubtful to say the least. It is highly unlikely that individuals new to the country would know how to catch a bus, let alone coordinate their own visit to Jericho prison. They must have had contacts through the ISM. And the palestinians would hardly grant visits to complete strangers. It is likely their visit was through the ISM, an organization deemed trustworthy by the palestinians.

Furthermore, one of the ISMers in the photos is identified as Alan from Scotland. An ISMer named Alan from Scotland was reported injured at a protest in May of this year. Given that the events of the Frontpage report occurred 2 months ago (July), if it is the same Alan from Scotland, then he was clearly a fully fledged ISMer by July.

That was my long response. My short response is: you can’t trust anything the ISM tell you, since they are instructed to lie when confronted with the truth.