Israellycool

If like me, you thought it was pretty sick that Farfur the Martyr Mouse had a human grandfather, then wait until you meet his cousin.

Saraa, child host: Who are you, and where did you come from?Nahoul the Bee: I am Nahoul.

Saraa: Nahoul who?

Nahoul: I’m Nahoul, Farfour’s cousin.

Saraa: What do you want?

Nahoul: I want to continue the path of my cousin Farfour.

Saraa: How do you want to do this?

Nahoul: I want to be in every episode with you on the Pioneers of Tomorrow show, just like Farfour. I want to continue in the path of Farfour‚ the path of Islam, of heroism, of martyrdom, and of the mujahideen. Me and my friends will follow in the footsteps of Farfour. We will take revenge upon the enemies of Allah, the killer of the prophets and of the innocent children, until we liberate Al-Aqsa from their impurity. We place our trust in Allah.

Saraa: Welcome, Nahoul…

Besides sexually deviant relatives and a penchant for glorifying murder for children, Nahoul the Bee seems to have something else in common with Farfur - copyright infringement.

The BBC has apologized to Queen Elizabeth (to whom I refer as Her Royal Hiny, since she does not do much more than sit on her butt all day) for “mistakenly showing footage that wrongly implied she walked out of a portrait session during a documentary.”

The BBC showing something misleading? I am shocked I tell you ! Shocked!

Here’s BBC One’s Six O’Clock News report showing the footage in question, as well as the BBC’s apology.

I was particularly amused by the statement in the report “It’s an image that goes completely against how the public perceives her Majesty.” Do they mean to tell us that this behavior from the Queen is somehow surprising?

Libyan defense lawyer Osman al-Bizanti, and Australian media personality Derryn Hinch.

And now for something a little different….a guest post. This one is from Israellycool friend, political analyst and journalist Jeremy Wimpfheimer (who also featured on an Israellycool podcast here).

Called the Social Seal or Tav Chevrati in Hebrew, the certificate which is now being prominently displayed in over 300 Israeli eateries from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and various other locales was introduced by Bema’aglei Tzedek to combat what the organization’s director Asaf Banner calls “an all too often ignored, yet deeply troubling aspect of Israeli society.”

Banner, who was among the organization‚Äôs founders in 2004 says, ‚ÄúThe way that tens of thousands of workers all over Israel are being treated without regard to their most basic human rights was a situation that demanded to be addressed.  We saw that the social seal was a great way of bringing attention to this issue.‚Äù  While the campaign began locally in Jerusalem with organization representatives using the seal as a means to promote the good labor practices of shop owners, it has quickly gained steam and spread across the country.

Roey Zisman who manages the popular Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Caf√© on Jaffa Road in downtown Jerusalem believes that the seal is something many of his customers greatly value as well as acting as a motivating factor for employers to  improve worker conditions.  ‚ÄúThe Social Seal is very important in our relationship with our workers,‚Äù says Zisman. ‚ÄúI hear many people coming in and asking about it and we feel that there is a large clientele that comes to eat with us because of it.‚Äù

Since its founding, Bema‚Äôaglei Tzedek has been active within the Israeli school system and in the country‚Äôs numerous youth movements.  According to Marla Haruni, a New York native and Jerusalem resident, it was her children who taught her about the seal and since that time the family will only visit eateries that have received the organization‚Äôs approval.  ‚ÄúMy children have really come to view the Social Seal with the same level of importance as the kosher dietary certification,‚Äù the mother of four said.    ‚ÄúI think it’s crucial that people recognize that a restaurant being truly kosher requires that they act in accordance with all Jewish values beyond just ensuring that the food is prepared properly.”

In order for an eatery to receive the seal, representatives of the organization will visit the restaurant and observe overall conditions as well as speak with the workers.  According to Banner, several seals have been revoked after it was reported that workers‚Äô rights were being repeatedly violated. Violations include cases where workers are being denied breaks or being paid below the legal minimum wage or where the restaurant is lacking appropriate access for the handicapped.

The seal has also gained the attention of many members of the Israeli Knesset across the political spectrum.  Amir Peretz, who until recently served as Israel‚Äôs Defense Minister and was the longtime head of the Histadrut national union said the seal is establishing a new standard of ethical practice in Israeli society and that ‚Äúhighlighting the issue of worker‚Äôs rights will create a better future for the people of Israel.‚Äù Zevulun Orlev, a member of the Mafdal party, notes that this effort brings to the forefront an issue which is of critical nature to the national and Zionist cause. ‚ÄúIn order for us to be a fair and just society,‚Äù he says, ‚Äúit is necessary that workers have the assurance that they will receive the proper treatment and compensation they deserve.‚Äù

As one of the numerous events throughout the year advancing this cause, on Tuesday, July 3rd, Bema’aglei Tzedek held a conference at Jerusalem ’s Rose Garden across from the Knesset entitled “Fighting the Exploitation of Custodial Workers.”

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Chief Rabbi of Efrat who addressed the conference which attracted approximately 1500 according to police estimates, said that despite often being pushed to the side of the social agenda, workers rights is something which is deeply entrenched in Jewish values.  ‚ÄúThe Torah teaches again and again that our ability to stay on this holy soil of Israel depends on our being a holy people specifically in the realm of human relations - including those between employer and employee,‚Äù he said.

Taking place on the fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz at the outset of the summer break, a collection of the conference attendees were North Americans visiting Israel over vacation.  Rabbi Chaim Sidler-Feller, Director of the Hillel at UCLA said the lessons being conveyed by this organization were important ones for a younger generation that often could feel alienated by Jewish traditions.  ‚ÄúThis effort serves to show the ‚Äòoperationalization‚Äô of Judaism by displaying how values are not just in the mind but need to be acted upon.‚Äù

Asaf Banner believes that the Social Seal truly has the potential to change how an Israeli society often ambivalent about these types of issues views the question of how its workers are being treated.  ‚ÄúFor every additional restaurant or caf√© that joins the ranks of those bearing the social seal we feel that we‚Äôre making that much more of a difference,‚Äù he says.  ‚ÄúAs more and more consumers become familiar with this seal, we know business owners across the country will begin to take notice and at that point anything is possible.‚Äù

If there ever was a picture begging for a caption, it is this one of Prince Charles handing over service medals to British soldiers who fought in Afghanistan (thanks to Shy Guy).

Update: The Queen’s reaction?

A few weeks after bringing us Mahmoud Abbas’ admission that the palestinians are not Israel’s indigenous people, MEMRI now bring us Ahmad Jibril (Secretary-General of the PFLP General Command) with another admission (hat tip: Elder).

Ahmad Jibril: When Abu Mazen came to Damascus with his team, I asked them: “What happened to the investigation into the death of Abu Ammar [Arafat]? The Israelis killed him. He was my colleague ever since 1965 and used to sleep at my home. He and I followed the same path.” Is it conceivable that when Rafiq Al-Hariri was killed, all hell broke loose, even though he was just a merchant in Saudi Arabia, who later entered politics, whereas the death of Yasser Arafat, who for 40 years had been carrying his gun from one place to another, is not investigate? Is this conceivable? They were silent, and then one of them said to me: “To be honest, the French gave us the medical report, that stated that the cause of Abu Ammar’s death was AIDS.” I am not saying this, they did. Now they pretend that they miss Yasser Arafat, and complain that [Hamas] entered his house in [Gaza] and so on… I say to every honorable member of the Fatah movement that he should be happy that we got rid of the plague, which had been imposed upon them and upon the Palestinian people. The Fatah movement now has an opportunity to renew itself.

Piggyfat has reportedly said “What took you so long?”

Update: A few of my favorite posts dealing with Arafat’s sexuality.
Not That There’s Anything Wrong With It…
The Proof
Tails Up

[His high school teacher].. said that he stood out among his classmates. “When they coined the phrase ’salt of the earth,’ it was for people like him. He was decent, sensitive and always willing to help.”

 

Hagit Baruch, Arbel’s high-school literature teacher said: “Arbel loved life and loved his friends. School did not really interest him. He only decided to take the bagrut (matriculation) exams towards the end of his senior year.”

Update: Mobius has managed to capture screenshots from many (if not all) the sites this morning.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Fatah have taken exam cheating to a whole new level.

Earlier this week, some 150 Fatah gunmen stormed a number of schools in Nablus and drove out hundreds of students who were taking high school matriculation exams.

The gunmen were protesting against Abbas’s refusal to allocate secret halls for them so that they, too, could sit for the exams, without risking being arrested or killed by the IDF. The gunmen were later allowed to sit for the exams in special halls.

One of the teachers said most of the gunmen cheated.

“They opened books and copied the answers word by word,” he said. “We were afraid to stop them because they were carrying M-16 rifles.

Sure beats cheat sheets.

Times Online has the story of a British woman who married one of the sons of Osama bin Laden. Reading it, you would be excused for thinking you were reading The Onion.

A British woman has married a son of Osama bin Laden after a holiday romance and is to apply for a visa so that he can visit Britain, The Times has learnt.

Jane Felix-Browne, a 51-year-old grandmother and parish councillor from Cheshire, has until now kept her marriage to Omar Ossama bin Laden, 27, secret from everyone apart from her immediate family and close friends. But she has now agreed to speak about her relationship with bin Laden’s fourth eldest son.

“It would be nice if, like any other married woman, I could stand up and say this is my husband and this is his name, but I have to be realistic about things,” she told The Times. “I hope people don’t judge me too harshly. I married the son, not the father.”

Mrs Felix-Browne says she is aware that some people will be hostile to her marriage. Among the numerous terrorist plots linked to her new father-in-law are the London suicide bombings on July 7, 2005, the July 21 plot, and the recent attempted attacks in London and Glasgow. “I just married the man I met and fell in love with, to me he is just Omar,” she said. “I hope that people will take a step back and think what it was like when they fell in love. He is the most beautiful person I have ever met. His heart is pure, he is pious, quiet, a true gentleman, and he is my best friend.”

Mrs Felix-Browne, who has been married five times previously, met Mr bin Laden in Egypt in September while undergoing treatment for multiple sclerosis. She says that their fairytale romance began when her future husband saw her riding a horse near the Great Pyramid. They were married in Islamic ceremonies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and are awaiting permission from the authorities in Riyadh to make their marriage official.

Mrs Felix-Browne is still coming to terms with the practical difficulties of being the daughter-in-law of a man with a $25 million (¬£12.5 million) bounty on his head. “Omar is wary of everyone. He is constantly watching people who he feels might be following him. Not without reason he is fearful of cameras. He is the son of Osama,” she said. “But when we are together he forgets his life.”

Mrs Felix-Browne already knew some members of the bin Laden family through her Islamic marriage to a Saudi man in London when she was 16. She believes that she actually met Osama bin Laden at a party in London in the 1970s.

Omar bin Laden left Saudi Arabia as a child when his father was expelled for his extremist beliefs, his wife said. Living in exile in Sudan and then Afghanistan, he saw at first hand the creation of al-Qaeda and its techniques. Mrs Felix-Browne said: “I never had any problem with his past. Omar did not do anything wrong. He was a child when he was in Afghanistan.”

She said that her husband left Afghanistan before the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. However, some reports claim that he split from his father only after the attack on New York and an argument about tactics.

Mrs Felix-Browne insisted: “He last saw his father in 2000 when they were both in Afghanistan. He left his father because he did not feel it was right to fight or to be in an army. Omar was training to be a soldier and he was only 19. He told me he has had no contact with his father since the day he left him. He misses his father. Omar doesn’t know if it was his father who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. I don’t think we will ever know.

So let’s get this straight. Omar is just a pure-hearted, pious, quiet pacifist. Oh, and he doesn’t really think his father was behind 9-11.

Apart from their religion the couple appear to have little in common. She has three sons and five grandchildren and is a respected parish councillor in the village of Moulton. She has had various jobs, including restoring houses and aircraft, and is a keen rider and scuba diver.

He works as a scrap metal dealer in Jedda and is one of at least 17 children fathered by bin Laden. His father’s reputation means that he has been ostracised by the wealthy and powerful bin Laden family and is under surveillance by the security services in Saudi Arabia.

Mrs Felix-Browne, who now uses the Islamic name Zaina Mohamad, says that she speaks to her husband for several hours every day over the internet or by telephone. During their conversations she refers to him repeatedly as “Habibi, “the Arabic for “my love.” She said: “I find it very difficult to live without him and I know he does too. But really we have the most normal life possible.”

And how normal is that?

She was aware before her marriage that her husband already had another wife and a two-year-old child. “I haven’t seen her but I have spoken to her for about an hour on the telephone,” she said. “She is fine about it.”

Moving right along..

Mrs Felix-Browne was initially reluctant to discuss her new husband but news of their relationship inevitably began to leak out in Britain and the Middle East. “I don’t want any of my family distressed or upset by my actions,” she said. “I know that for everybody who likes me there will probably be a million enemies.”

Now she hopes that Mr bin Laden will come to Britain. “He would like to spend quite a bit of time here,” she said. “There is no reason why he should not come to live, but I don’t think he would like the weather.”

Actually, I could think of plenty other reasons why he should not come to live in Britain. And the weather is not one of them.

Then again, he could always get a job as a policeman.

The Jerusalem Post reports on the latest Hamas shenanigans.

Hamas’s Finance Ministry on Monday barred Israeli fruits and vegetables from entering the Gaza Strip on Monday, according to the spokesman for the Fruit Growers Association.

The move is likely to cost Israeli fruit growers NIS 3-5 million a day, according to the association.

The Hamas decision will also make it harder for Palestinians to keep fruits and vegetables in their diet, particularly those items not grown in Gaza, according to Shlomo Dror, spokesman for t