Israellycool

“It seems to me that, today, it can be stated confidently — and not, God forbid, arrogantly — that the Israeli people has a government that knows how to protect it, that it has a leadership that knows how to look out for its security and future.”

- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The only thing sadder than the fact Olmert really believe this is the fact he is still our Prime Minister.

Bring out the flying pig who, incidentally, has unexpected support.

A new Muslim organization is coming out with a highly untraditional campaign, demanding better care for Danish hogs, which according to the organization suffer unnecessarily from grueling transports and castration without anesthesia.

Imam Abdul Wahid Pedersen [ed. one of Denmark's more radical imams], who heads the organization “Muslims for rights of Danish pigs”, together with four other Muslims says that it’s a disgrace for our whole nation that something like this takes place.

Muslims are forbidden to eat pork due to a specific ban in the Koran, but that does not mean that Muslims can’t fight for the rights of impure animals, thinks Pedersen. He says that even hogs who are going to the slaughter are part of God’s creation and require a humanistic - not hoggish - treatment and therefore they will now express their great indignation about such outrage in reader letters in newspapers.

Pedersen doesn’t fear the anger of Muslims worldwide who can’t see the reason for championing an impure animal. He says that there might be several who react, but he declares that even if Muslims don’t eat pork, they want to show that Muslim can discuss things other than veils and Islamization, and that they are also concerned about completely normal problems on Earth such as global warming and animal welfare.

Source: Nyhedsavisen (Danish)

While it is nice to see a Muslim group concerned for the welfare of pigs, I would prefer to see the emergence of Muslim groups concerned for the welfare of Jews.

After all, we are treated far worse than pigs, especially at the hands of Muslims. And we are apparently related.

The palestinian WAFA news agency reports on a new palestinian invention.

A Palestinian female youth from Hebron city town of Bany Neim managed in developing a machine for Spraying of pesticides and fertilizers to work by the sun energy.

The machine is electronically controlled. The girl is to be the first Palestinian who could do such an invention. She seeks to have a patent for the invention allover Palestinian and the whole world.

Why don’t I find it hard to believe that she is the “first Palestinian who could do such an invention”?

But I guess I should be grateful that a palestinian is using pesticides and fertilizers for something other than bombs.

The irony is she has a better chance of winning a Nobel prize if she was involved in terrorism.

“I don’t know what our government does except put us into debt and blow up other countries.”

- Madonna

Yet more Reuters bias:*

A Palestinian man takes down an anti-Israel Hamas poster after a rally in Gaza, March 4, 2008. Israel dismissed on Friday a Hamas proposal for a six-month Gaza Strip truce during which an embargo on the territory would be lifted, saying the Palestinian Islamists wanted to prepare for more fighting rather than peace. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

I think the implication of * the message our friend at Reuters is trying to convey through the picture and caption is clear - Hamas really do want a short-term peace with Israel, and are even willing to cease the anti-Israel incitement. But, alas, it is Israel dismissing Hamas’ genuine peace overtures.

U-huh.

* wording changed due to misunderstanding that I was endorsing the message of the picture and caption

I mentioned on Wednesday in my blog that the UNRWA in the West Bank went on a planned 3 day strike - stopping food distribution and other services - in response to attacks and threats on UNRWA personnel by Palestinian Arabs.

And these events were not mentioned, as far as I could tell, on the UN or UNRWA websites (although their concurrent suspension activities in Gaza in response to fuel shortages were mentioned.)

Why does the supposedly neutral UNRWA go out of its way to mention anything that can be blamed on Israel and downplay things that Palestinian Arabs do to them?

I emailed the UNRWA three times - first to their public information office, then to their West Bank PR office, and finally to Christopher Gunness, who is also one of the UNRWA’s press liaisons:

Dear Mr. Gunness:

I read in Palestine Today Wednesday morning that UNRWA is closing its offices in the West Bank in protest from being forced to close earlier this month by protesters. I could not, however, find any press release from UNRWA concerning this, nor about the protests earlier this month reported in PNN.

Can you please comment on what is happening and any background information you might have? I originally sent the email to the main public information office 24 hours ago, and then to the West Bank PIO last night, but received no response.

Thank you,

Elder of Ziyon

Here is Gunness’ response in its entirety:

HI there,

There had been problems but these have now been avoided for the time being.

Chris

That’s it. Nothing specific, no confirmation of what I had mentioned, no pointers to any press releases I might have missed - nada.

To the UNRWA, violent attacks by the people they are meant to help are embarrassing events that should never be mentioned to the public because the UNRWA is emotionally invested in making sure that the Palestinian Arabs appear purely as victims and never - never - as being partially responsible for their own problems.

Their website contains megabytes of information about the 1948 “nakba” but to find out the real source of their problems nowadays one must decipher doublespeak that is buried deep within. For example:

With more than 9,000 people crammed into an area 650 meters by 200 meters, Neirab camp near Aleppo has a population density that sadly rivals Gaza. Most of the population lives in small one-room shelters. Depending on the time of day, these tiny rooms may serve as living rooms, salons or bedrooms.

Um Hashem, Neirab resident, outlines in gestures how six people can sleep in twelve square metres: four people lay sideways across the room. Meanwhile, Um Hashem lies lengthways, clutching her two-month-old son.

It has been close quarters in Neirab camp since the first Palestine refugees fled their homeland to Syria in 1948, where they were put up in abandoned WWII barracks. Originally, each barrack in the former British and French military base housed sixteen families. With successive generations the camp population increased, however the size of the camp has stayed the same. To address overcrowding, an infrastructural overhaul has become necessary.

In Phase I of the Neirab Rehabilitation Project, UNRWA built new shelters for Neirab refugees in the nearby camp of Ein el Tal, which does not suffer from the same overcrowding. This phase is drawing to a close with 300 families relocating to new shelters. Their decampment will provide additional space for the refugees still residing in Neirab.

Volker Schimmel, UNRWA Project Officer for the Neirab Rehabilitation Project, insists that although the living conditions of Palestine refugees in Neirab must be improved considerably, the project is not calling into question their right of return. “We want to allow Palestinians to live in dignity,” he states. “Choosing not to live in misery does not mean that they will forfeit their right of return.”

In English, this last paragraph means that any UNRWA attempts to build better housing for Palestinian Arabs in camps has been roadblocked for 60 years by “Arab leaders” who think that happier Palestinian Arabs may lead some of them to not want to destroy Israel quite as much, which reduces their usefulness considerably. The UNRWA doesn’t even try to pressure Arab governments to allow PalArabs to become citizens any more - they abandoned that decades ago, unlike the UNHCR, which is actually dedicated to reducing the number of refugees under its care.

The UNRWA might have its private frustrations with the Palestinian Arab leaders who fight tooth and nail against the welfare of real-life Palestinian Arabs, but it will only publicly blame Israel.

A day after US President George Bush expressed his confidence in the creation of a palestinian state, palestinian terrorists expressed their confidence that terrorism will gain them even more concessions.

Two Israeli security guards were shot dead overnight Friday in a shooting attack at the Nitzanei Shalom industrial zone, near the West Bank city of Tul Karm.

The bodies of the two middle-aged men were discovered Friday morning in a factory where in the industrial zone, on the boundary between Israeli territory and the Palestinian-ruled city.

Security officials said the attack was terror related. They suspect a militant from the Islamic Jihad organization infiltrated the industrial zone and opened fire at close range.

The victims were named as Shimon Mizrahi, 59, of Beit Hefer, and Eli Wasserman, 50, of Alfei Menashe.

The two guards were apparently screening Palestinians workers coming in when the gunman approached them, opened fire and then escaped, the military said.

“A Palestinian shot dead two guards at the security-check area at the entrance to the industrial zone,” an Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman said.

“We are treating this as a terrorist attack. It may have come from the outside, but there are also hundreds of Palestinians who work at Nitzanei Oz.”

There were no other casualties reported and no Palestinian militant group immediately claimed responsibility.

Rescue teams pronounced the two men dead on the site. Security officials were searching the area for the gunman, who is believed to have fled into Tul Karm.

Palestinian security officials in Tul Karm said IDF soldiers moved into the West Bank in force after the attack and set up a checkpoint.

Coming soon: palestinian complaining about checkpoints and their inability to work inside Israel.

And in a busy day(so far) for terrorists:

In a separate incident on Friday morning, Palestinians near the West Bank city of Ramallah hurled three firebombs at an Israeli vehicle driving in the area. There were no injuries.

Also Friday, three Qassam rockets fired by Palestinians in Gaza struck southern Ashkelon. One of the rockets hit a cemetery in the south of the city, causing some damage to tombstones.

A fourth Qassam was fired toward Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, in the western Negev.

The Aussie Dave family were at Ashkelon beach yesterday, and jokingly remarked that Qassams would put a dampener on things. Here’s a picture Mrs Aussie Dave took on the way back home, a reminder that none of us are that far from missile range.

Updates:

12:25PM: The Jerusalem Post has this interesting bit of information about the location of the shooting:

The Nitzane Shalom complex was built in 1995. It houses nine factories that provide jobs to many Palestinians from the West Bank.

A cynical exploitation of Israeli goodwill, just like the recent Nahal Oz fuel terminal terror attack.

For the record, Nitzane Shalom means “Buds of peace.”

2:12PM: More on the victims:

Shimon Mizrahi’s widow, Sara, arrived at the terminal after hearing from her sister-in-law that something had happened at the industrial zone. “I had a bad feeling, so I came,” she said, trembling.

She told Ynet that she had asked him not to go to work that day. “I told him to stay home. He was meant to be on vacation today. He shouldn’t have gone to work. This is my nightmare.”

Family members, friends and acquaintances of Eli Wasserman gathered at his home in Alfei Menashe following the attack. Wasserman was the manager of a factory at the industrial zone. He arrived Friday morning to pick up Palestinian workers and guard their entry, and was murdered.

Hisdai Eliezer, head of the Alfei Menashe Local Council, arrived at the family home and said that he had known Wasserman for many years. “Eli’s father was injured in 1968 during his military service, his brother was killed three months later as officer, and now he was killed in a place called ‘Nitzanei Hashalom’ (buds of peace).”

Hisdai added, “For years I have been saying that the industrial zone is one of the places just waiting to see a disaster. There is a gate inside the Palestinian territory, with guards standing and letting Palestinians in.”

Wasserman’s friends said that he was a quiet and shy person, whose family was loved by all the community members. He was survived by his wife, Chaya, and his two children, 30-year-old Ahiad and 28-year-old Michal. His funeral will take place on Sunday at 3 pm at the Netanya cemetery.

4:15PM: In further proof that killing Jews is great for popularity in palestinian areas, Ma’an reports that 5 terror organizations have claimed responsibility for this morning’s shooting attack - including the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, affiliated with Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah.

Five Palestinian resistance factions have claimed responsibility for shooting dead two Israeli security guards in the Tulkarem industrial zone on Friday.

Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Brigades say they carried out the attack in co-ordination with the relatively unknown Al-Awda wa Nidal Brigades and the Ahrar Al-Muthalith Brigades, who are based inside Israel.

Ma’an also has more details on the attack:

A spokesperson telephoned Ma’an and said that three of their members targeted Israeli the security guards, using only one gun. They then escaped.

“The operation was two weeks in the planning and so the brigades rejected the ceasefire talks with Israel by Hamas and other factions,” the spokesperson said.

The military wing of Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds brigades and the Al-Qassam Brigades the military wing of Hamas, also claimed responsibility for the operation in Tulkarem.

They sent a joint statement to Ma’an giving details of the operation - “At 5.15 am at dawn on Friday one of the resistance fighters was able to reach get into the location disguised as a woman. He went from near Tulkarem to the region of Nitzanei Shalom, which is the industrial zone located between the territory of Tulkarem and the lands of 1948. He then changed into a worker’s uniform and went to the area at 7.17 am at the same time as Palestinian workers enter the factories. The Palestinian youth that shot the guards was slightly injured but managed to escape safely.”

Some more facts to consider next time you hear palestinian women and workers complain about being stopped and checked at checkpoints.

Hollywood actor Wesley Snipes has learned the hard way that crime does not pay, even if you are famous and filthy rich.

Wesley Snipes called on famous friends to vouch for him, highlighted his clean criminal record and even wrote the government $5 million in checks — all in an effort to convince a judge that his conviction on tax charges should cost him nothing more than home detention and some public service announcements.

None of it worked. The “Blade” actor was ordered to do hard time.

Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday for failing to file tax returns, the maximum penalty — and a victory for prosecutors who sought to make an example of the action star.

Snipes’ lawyers had spent much of the day in court offering dozens of letters from family members, friends — even fellow actors Woody Harrelson and Denzel Washington — attesting to his good character. His attorneys recommended he be given home detention and ordered to make public service announcements because his three convictions were all misdemeanors and the actor had no previous criminal record.

But U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges said Snipes exhibited a “history of contempt over a period of time” for U.S. tax laws, and granted prosecutors the three-year sentence they requested — one year for each of Snipes’ convictions of willfully failing to file a tax return from 1999-2001.

“In my mind these are serious crimes, albeit misdemeanors,” Hodges said.

Snipes apologized while reading from a written statement for his “costly mistakes,” but never mentioned the word taxes.

“I am an idealistic, naive, passionate, truth-seeking, spiritually motivated artist, unschooled in the science of law and finance,” Snipes said. He said his wealth and celebrity attracted “wolves and jackals like flies are attracted to meat.” He called himself “well-intentioned, but miseducated.”

Snipes surprised the court before Hodges handed down the sentence by offering the government three checks totaling $5 million in unpaid taxes over several years, money the government first denied but then accepted. Prosecutors called it “grandstanding” to avoid jail time, and a mere down payment on the actor’s still-undetermined multimillion dollar tax bill.

The action star of the “Blade” trilogy, “White Men Can’t Jump,” “Jungle Fever” and other films hasn’t filed a tax return since 1998, the government alleged. Snipes and the IRS will work in future civil proceedings to determine his full tax liability, plus interest and penalties.

Snipes was the highest-profile criminal tax target in years, and prosecutors called for a heavy sentence to deter others from trying to obstruct the IRS. The government alleged Snipes made at least $13.8 million for the years in question and owed $2.7 million in back taxes.

Update: Some possible future Snipes’ movies?

White Men Can’t Jump, But They Sure Can Make Life Difficult in Prison

Blade IV: Bubba’s Revenge

Waiting to Parole

Prisoner 57

You should know by now that when Israeli UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman opens his mouth, he invariably makes sense and sounds good in doing so.

Here’s his latest:

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations called former President Jimmy Carter “a bigot” for meeting with the leader of the militant Hamas movement in Syria.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, “went to the region with soiled hands and came back with bloody hands after shaking the hand of Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas,” Ambassador Dan Gillerman told reporters at a luncheon briefing Thursday.

—-

The ambassador called last weekend’s encounter “a very sad episode in American history.”

He said it was “a shame” to see Carter, who had done “good things” as a former president, “turn into what I believe to be a bigot.”

Telephone calls by The Associated Press to two Atlanta numbers for Carter were not immediately returned Thursday.

During Carter’s visit, Gillerman said, Hamas “was shelling our cities and maiming and injuring and wounding Israeli babies and Israeli children.”

Actually, Gillerman is not completely correct. The hands of Arafat’s “dear friend” were well and truly bloodied before visiting Hamas. And Carter did not do good things even as a president, let alone as a former one.

Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer has landed a starring role in Angels & Demons, opposite Tom Hanks.

Ayelet Zurer has landed the coveted role of Vittoria Vetra in Sony Pictures’ upcoming Da Vinci Code prequel Angels & Demons. While the studio won’t confirm, sources close to the production tell EW.com that the Israeli actress (who played Eric Bana’s wife in Munich and was last seen in Sony’s Vantage Point) has been cast opposite Tom Hanks in the Ron Howard-directed film. The actress was chosen over more well-known stars, including Naomi Watts, who had been in talks for the role, according to previous reports.

Zurer’s character is the daughter of CERN physicist Leonardo Vetra. Following her father’s death, Vittoria pairs with Robert Langdon (Hanks) on a journey to uncover the mystery behind her father’s murder and stop a terrorist plot. Sony has yet to cast the roles of Maximilian Kohler (director of CERN) and Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca (aide to the Pope). The production was delayed late last year due to the writers strike. It is now set to begin filming in Europe in June, eyeing a May 15, 2009, release date.

No word yet on whether she got the role because she is a good actress, or because the casting agents thought they were hiring that chick from The Princess Diaries.

Our favorite palestinian protester is back - with a new shirt, but an old hairstyle.

“Yeah, so I’ve gone back to a goatee. You got a problem with that?”

Guess who got Sith-faced drunk and ended up on the dark wrong side of the (police) force?

A man posing as Darth Vader attacked a Star Wars fan, who had founded a Jedi Church, a court has heard.

Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, from Holyhead, Anglesey, admitted assaulting Barney Jones and cousin Michael with a metal crutch. They suffered minor injuries.

Hughes, who was drunk and dressed in a black bin bag, shouted “Darth Vader!”

Earlier, when Hughes failed to arrive on time, District Judge Andrew Shaw issued an arrest warrant, adding: “I hope the force will soon be with him.”

In the event, Hughes turned up and the case at Holyhead magistrates court resumed.

The court heard he had jumped over a garden wall wearing the bin bag before the attack.

Outlining the case against Hughes, prosectutor Nia Lloyd said Barney Jones had recently started the Jedi church in Holyhead - in honour of the Star Wars’ good knights.

It had about 30 members locally and “thousands worldwide”.

The cousins had been filming themselves playing with light sabres in the