Israellycool

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Statue of Liberty.

While I was in the hospital earlier this week, awaiting the entry of my fourth child into this world , Michelle Malkin - as well as a host of others - were paying tribute to someone else’s child, who was cruelly taken from this world.

I am referring to Shiri Negari, who was murdered by a palestinian suicide bomber in 2002.

It all started after Michelle posted the picture on the right, taken by a protestor standing outside the gates of Columbia University. As Michelle subsequently noted, it “resonated deeply with many readers and bloggers” so she followed it up with more tributes for Shiri, including this video:

While you are watching this heartbreaking tribute, and are no doubt captivated by Shiri’s beauty (inside and outside), note the dignity of Shiri’s family. No calls for revenge, but rather a hope to continue Shiri’s legacy of helping people.

Now I certainly don’t enjoy the traffic of Michelle Malkin’s blog, but I know I have many readers who either don’t read her blog or have not necessarily “chosen a side” in the Middle East conflict. It is mainly for you that I am posting this.

Shiri’s story is just one of (unfortunately) many. Help us prevent many more such stories in the future by supporting Israel’s battle against terrorism, and not rewarding the palestinians for committing such despicable acts.

AFP reports:

Former US president Jimmy Carter joined the ranks of movie stars like Brad Pitt and George Clooney at the world premiere of “Man from Plains,” the biopic about his life, which premiered Monday at the Toronto film festival.

The documentary by Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme (”The Silence of the Lambs” and “Philadelphia”) follows Carter on a promotional tour eight months ago for his controversial book “Palestine Peace, not Apartheid.”

It also touches on his life since his one-term presidency (1977-1981).

While thousands of Clooney and Pitt fans crushed barricades around their hotel, a smaller, but duly awestruck group gathered outside a local cinema hoping for the 39th US president and Nobel peace prize winner’s autograph.

Needless to say, the movie contains Carter at his ignorant best.

Taking part in the film festival’s first geo-political talk, taped for television, Carter called for Washington to hold “direct talks” with Iran, laid out his vision for Mideast peace and lamented the “unwarranted and unprecedented” religious fundamentalism that has crept into US politics.

In a stinging attack on US President George W. Bush and his Christian supporters, he said: “I worship Christ who was the prince of peace, not pre-emptive war.”

“A superpower like the United States should use all of its resources … to promote peace,” he said.

Talking about his book, Carter said: “I hope it will precipitate attempting to find peace in the Holy Land.”

“It’s one of the most important political issues in the world, because a lot of the animosity (in the world) is centered around what’s happening to bring peace or not bring peace in (Israel-Palestine).”

“There hasn’t been one single day of peace talks in the last seven years,” he complained.

“I became very frustrated to see the stagnation there and the animosity building up around the world against my own nation just because we had not tried to bring peace to Israel and its (surrounding) states,” he said, explaining his inspiration for the book.

Carter noted that he and his wife Rosalynn had visited the Palestinian territories on three occasions in recent years.

“I was amazed and almost nauseated to see the encroachment by Israel on Palestinian land and the persecution of the Palestinians,” he said, citing 205 fortified Jewish settlements in “choice places” in the West Bank.

Rosalynn commented that the wall built by Israel to separate the two sides, but condemned internationally, was “shocking.”

—-

Why has that early success never been repeated?

“In the first place, Washington (lately) hasn’t tried,” said Carter. “And the entire world now feels that America has let the Palestinians down.”

I could think of some more appropriate names for the film.

The Jerk

Clueless

The Monster and the Peanut

Teeth of Doom

Curse of the Undead

This next story is enough to make Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad go “In the PA controlled territories, they don’t have homosexuals like in your country.”

The Hamas-Fatah power struggle has descended into the gutter over the past few days, with both parties trading allegations about the involvement of their members in homosexual relations and adultery.

The alleged “sex scandals” are said to have occurred in the Gaza Strip, which fell into Hamas’s hands in June.

Shortly after the Islamist movement wrested control of the Strip, Hamas officials began talking about “embarrassing” and “damning” documents and films that were seized inside Palestinian Authority security headquarters formerly controlled by Fatah.

According to the officials, the Fatah men had been spying on several senior PA officials, some of whom were caught on tape having homosexual intercourse.

A DVD distributed among a limited number of Hamas representatives features a former PA official having sex with another man. The disc, according to a Palestinian journalist in Gaza City, is being sold on the black market for NIS 20.

Hamas says the PA’s Preventive Security Force played a major role in collecting the evidence against the senior PA officials. In some cases, Hamas said, the documents and tapes were used to extort large sums of money from the PA officials.

Two documents that were allegedly seized inside Preventative Security Force headquarters provide insight into the method used to collect information about the sexual conduct of the top officials.

According to one document, entitled “A Large Number of Homosexuals,” a number of wealthy and influential figures in the Gaza Strip had formed a “gang” for practicing homosexual intercourse.

“Some of them were summoned for questioning and they admitted to having sexual intercourse with boys and adult males,” the document, dated May 12, 2005, stated.

“Some of them had individual sex, while others preferred group sex. Some of them paid money for sex, while others performed sexual intercourse with males in front of their wives.”

The sex allegedly took place in hotels, clinics and private homes - in some cases with a picture of Yasser Arafat hanging overhead.

Or should that be with Yasser Arafat hanging overhead.

The document described the homosexuals as a “very dangerous group” and warned that the phenomenon might spread to other parts of the Gaza Strip, adding that rival political factions could exploit the case to defame Fatah and “create chaos and confusion.”

The second document is a follow-up to the first.

Entitled “Results of Questioning,” it names four homosexuals who allegedly had sexual relations with senior Fatah officials in the Strip.

The four supposedly blackmailed the officials after filming them during sexual intercourse. “Since we are talking about top Fatah figures, there is a need to summon them and talk to them,” the document, dated May 19, 2005, concluded.

A Hamas official in the Gaza Strip said the documents were the “tip of the iceberg” and that his movement was planning to reveal more evidence about Fatah’s “moral corruption.”

The official said Hamas had already posted a short video on the YouTube Web site showing used condoms that were found inside the offices of senior Fatah security commanders and political figures.

They certainly love YouTube, don’t they.

Another Hamas official said his men had uncovered three brothels that had been frequented by top Fatah officials in the Gaza Strip.

Fatah officials in Ramallah refused to comment on the latest allegations. However, they stressed that it was not hard to forge such documents since Hamas was now in control of the security headquarters and of all the archives and files inside the buildings.

But a respected Palestinian journalist in Gaza City who examined the two documents said there was no reason to doubt their authenticity.

In a bid to counter the Hamas campaign, Fatah members have published details about “sex scandals” involving Hamas activists.

According to Fatah, a Hamas imam was recently caught having sex with a male minor in a mosque basement.

In another incident, according to Fatah, a senior member of Hamas’s armed wing, Izaddin Kassam, was expelled from his refugee camp after he was caught having sex with a male colleague in a vehicle. And according to a report on a Fatah-controlled Web site, a Hamas man was caught naked together with his neighbor’s wife in her bedroom.

“These Hamas people are very immoral and corrupt,” said a senior Fatah official. “They use Islam as a cover-up for their crimes. But our people know very well who they are dealing with. We have a lot of information about the moral corruption of many Hamas officials and we will make them public at the right time.”

Can’t they just all make..err…love, and not war?

Looks like those Fatah and Hamas morality police have their work cut out for them. Unless they are part of the problem.

Previously on topic:

Not That There’s Anything Wrong With It…

The Proof

AIDS of the Tiger

Putin Visits Ramallah

Love in Lebanon

Tails Up

Caption Contest: Bottoms Up Edition

Update: Here’s your chance to join in the fun (no, not that kind of fun). I want you to post your “evidence” of terrorist love here in the comments.

I’ll start you off.

Ynetnews reports:

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem on Thursday evening denied the report that he had met with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

“Israel is spreading these rumors in the Israeli press,” the Syrian minister told the Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera.

Here are some other rumors that may or may not have been spread by us cheeky Zionists.

1. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem is the lost twin of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

2. He is not averse to the odd jelly donut.

3. Syrian President Bashar Assad sleeps at night with a teddy bear called Snuggles.

4. Besides their nuclear cooperation, North Korean and Iranian scientists are also working on a new type of platform shoe for their respective leaders.

5. There are actually homosexuals in Iran (ok, this one is actually true).

Weighing in at 4.17kg. I breed them big, I tell ya.

No podcast of the birth this year since it occurred on a Jewish festival day, which is kind of like Shabbos. And you should all know there are some things I don’t do on such days.

This is from the following Ynet news story about the wife of the kidnapped soldier, Ehud Goldwasser, getting into a press conference with Ahmadinejad to ask him a simple question.

Goldwasser recounts confrontation with Ahmadinejad

Goldwasser said she was not afraid to present the president with her question, and asked him, “Hello, my name is Karnit, the wife of Ehud Goldwasser, the soldier who has been held captive for over a year. Since you are the man that is behind the kidnapping due to the aid you grant Hizbullah, why don’t you allow the Red Cross to visit the two soldiers?” she asked.

The president ignored the question.

This picture of a now deceased palestinian negotiator caught my eye.

What is with that curly-haired guy in the background?

Looks like a cross between Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall and simply weird singer Michael Jackson.

Who does number four work for?

Obviously not my wife and I.

After 12 hours on pitocin to induce labor, still nothing. Seems like the latest mini-me is too comfortable in there. So I’ve come home for a few hours to catch up on some sleep, and then back to the hospital for round two.

Update: In case you didn’t get the reference at the beginning of this post:

I was in Israel for a long stay over the summer and I took a chance to excitedly do something I’d never done before. I took the tunnel tour that walks along the sub-terranian excavations at the base of what was the western wall of the temple mount. That little bit you see in pictures is just a fraction of the complete structure.

So the following story caught my eye: Quarry for Temple Mount’s Giant Rocks - Found.

One of the first things you see of the hidden wall is a massive (you just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is) stone. As ever it is beautifully finished and more amazingly it is not even at the base of the wall. Well they’ve found the quarry where that rock and its friends came from.

The following is the piece I recorded for Shire Network News at the time (episode 96):

Walking through the tunnels that have been exposed since 1967 is an amazing experience. All the more so because these tunnels give one a sense of the amazing scale of construction in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. This is fundamental as a solid, beautifully carved visual reminder of why Jerusalem is the city in which Jewishness is centred. Jews may have scattered, but our collective memories point to Jerusalem.

It is also essential to understanding the essence of the stories of Jesus. And I’m not talking about the Muslim Jesus, Isa, oh no.

That tunnel tour is one of the world’s greatest tourist experiences without any doubt. And the thought that it would be blocked off or closed by handing control of Jerusalem to the arch despoilers of history should be utterly unthinkable.

Already it is known that on the summit of the temple mount, Arab muslims are digging tunnels and destroying what they can. This is a hidden crime of the highest magnitude. Tearful archeologists know this is happening when they sift through the spoil the Arabs are dumping and find only shattered fragments of the treasures destroyed.

On the tour I took, the exit via the Muslim Quarter and the Via Delarosa, that was opened by Netanyahu, is too dangerous to use at night. And that is a part of soverign Israel today. Imagine if Jerusalem were under full Arab control.

The Jewish Virtual Library has more information.

*No infinitives were unintentionally split in the writing of this post.

Mr November to be exact.

And you’ll be glad to know I’m fully clothed.

Make sure you check out all the other great sites.

American actor Kevin Spacey is undoubtedly a very talented actor. What you might not have known is he is also rather good at imitations.

Don’t believe me? See here.

And here he is impersonating Sean Penn.

American actor Kevin Spacey met privately Monday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, one of Washington’s most outspoken critics in Latin America.

Neither Spacey - who has won Academy Awards for roles in “The Usual Suspects” and “American Beauty” - nor Chavez spoke to the press after the nearly three-hour encounter in the presidential palace in Caracas. They shook hands warmly on the red carpet as Spacey left after a dinner with Chavez.

Hours earlier, the actor visited a US$13 million (€9.2 million) film studio founded last year by the government to support Venezuelan filmmaking. Details were not released about the rest of Spacey’s itinerary.