yasser rida
Photo: Guy Asayag

Egypt’s Ambassador to Israel Yasser Rida is optimistic when it comes to the prospects of peace between Israel and the palestinians:

Rida spoke at Tel Aviv University in honor of 31 years to the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. In a conversation with Ynet at the event, he said, “If there is political will, Israel and the Palestinians can achieve peace within one year.”

I wonder when he thinks real peace between Egypt and Israel is possible.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)?

8:14PM: A PA cleric has warned palestinian parents that they shouldn’t instill fear in their children by threatening them with such evils as monsters, thieves, demons and Jews.

Not necessarily in that order.

OOOGA BOOOGA!

3:08PM: Following yesterday’s post on our Zionist Traffic Lights of DeathTM, there are those who claim that one way has considerably more vehicular traffic than the other and there’s really nothing more to it than that.

But as this photo from the palestinian territories shows, the traffic lights are indeed racist.

And yes, I am joking. But there are unfortunately many people who would readily believe it

1:32PM: According to the Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, US President Barack Obama told Mahmoud Abbas that he was committed to seeing the creation of a sovereign palestinian state within two years.

11:50AM: The Knesset yesterday agreed to again consider a draft resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks.

The Knesset decided by 12 votes to 8, with one abstention, that one of its standing committees will discuss the resolution and determine whether it should be put to a full parliament vote.

Speaker Reuven Rivlin was among those who voted for the decision. Significantly, a representative of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also backed a parliament debate on the bill drafted by Haim Oron, the leader of the left-wing opposition Meretz party.

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The Defense Committee did not even vote on the Armenian genocide resolutions in the past, despite clearance from the Knesset. It thus highlighted successive Israeli governments’ reluctance to antagonize Turkey, a rare Muslim partner of the Jewish state.

The Netanyahu government did not back a parliament debate on Armenian genocide recognition on the previous occasion, in May 2009. Commentators might link the apparent shift in its position on the highly sensitive issue to recent months’ worsening of Turkish-Israeli relations.

Member of the Knesset Chaim Oron stated:

“It’s important for us to make the Israeli people, Knesset in this case, recognize the tragedy of another nation. The Armenian nation needs us to be in the number of those parliaments which overpass 20, and which have recognized the fact of the Genocide”

And this is what MK Dov Khenin had to say:

“We, more than anyone else, can understand the pain of another nation, who has been committed to mass exterminations. Recognizing is our moral duty.”

9:42AM: Salman Masalha posits (in Ha’aretz) that the Israeli Arab MKs recent trip to Libya exposes their wretchedness.

Excerpt:

After a meal offered by their host came the groveling speeches, which included all the tired old slogans and the superlatives that despots of the lowest kind expect to hear about themselves. Outdoing everyone was MK Talab al-Sana, who asked the tyrant whether Libya would open its universities to Arab students from Israel. And his wish was immediately granted.

Instead of concern for schools and education here, al-Sana wants to send students to Libya. But this orotund and energetic legislator did not say where he is contemplating sending these students, or what he expects them to learn there. Perhaps to the Libyan Institute for Nano-Embroidery, or the Libyan Academy of Barbecuing Science?

After the flattery, the great leader, His Majesty the King of Kings and Emperor of Emperors, reportedly sat his guests down and gave them two solid hours of his infantile theories. He urged them, inter alia, to take two, three or four wives each, and to have lots of children. Not one of them had a word to say in reply.

Of course, I don’t agree with the entire piece, but he raises some valid points.

6:12AM: US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak respond to a blunt question from Gil Tamary of Israel’s Channel 10.

6:08AM: Palestinians have accused Egypt of deliberately killing palestinians inside a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border.

Toxic fumes killed four Palestinians and injured six inside a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border on Wednesday evening, medics reported.

It was not immediately clear what type of gas was used. Medics are accusing Egyptian forces of spraying a chemical into the tunnel as part of a crackdown on smuggling.

One of the victims was identified as Muhammad Abu Jamous. He was among four pronounced dead on arrival at Abu Yousef An-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, our correspondent reported from the scene. Six others were injured after inhaling gas inside a tunnel, medics said, blaming Egypt.

Gas might have been used in the same tunnel days earlier, officials said.

“Workers said they were on their way to one of the tunnels filled with poisonous gas a week ago, to confirm the toxin had dissipated,” Adham Abu Salmiya, spokesman for Gaza medical services, told Ma’an. “They were shocked to find it had actually remained in the tunnel, resulting in the deaths and injuries.”

Other news reports stated that Egypt blew up a tunnel and the victims died of smoke inhalation.

Meanwhile, not a word of condemnation from so-called pro-palestinian activists such as Free Gaza and the ISM, who nevertheless found the time to blog about alleged Israeli indiscretions.

6:02AM: Looks like someone is trying to smuggle something from under their shirt to their relative.

hizbullah relative
An unidentified relative of suspects accused of plotting attacks on behalf of Lebanon's Hezbollah group walks outside the Emergency State SecurityCourt in New Cairo April 28, 2010. Egypt on Wednesday convicted 26 men it linked to Lebanon's Hezbollah of planning attacks inside the country, in a case that has underscored Sunni Arab concerns about the rising influence of the Iranian-backed group.« Read less REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

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16 thoughts on “The Day In Israel: Thursday April 29th, 2010”

  1. Looking at him now, it is still difficult to believe that Mr. Barak was able to convincingly dress up as a woman. When Milton Berle, Rudi Guiliani, J. Edgar Hoover and others dressed up in drag it was a big goof. No one thought they were actually women. Was he wearing a burqa?

    1. Michael Zvi Krumbein

      I have no idea what you are referring to, but you ought to be ashames of yourself for leaving out "Flip" Wilson.

  2. LOL All I can think of is a verse from Lady GaGa's "Bad Romance"–

    I want your ugly, I want your disease
    I want your everything as long as its free
    I want your love, love, love…
    Caught in a bad romance

  3. The talk of a Palestinian state in 2011 is more of an opium dream than the pundits will admit. According to the Jerusalem Post's intrepid reporter Khaled Abu Toameh, PA prime minister Salaam Fayyad, the chief proponent of such a move, is not well liked within the Palestinian establishment. He is too honest for Fatah and too secular and accommodating to Israel for Hamas. In other words, he is a lone wolf who survives only because he brings in the money from the U.S. and the E.U. The Fatah people are now trying to clip his wings and wrest key ministries from his control, including finance. Should they restore baksheesh as usual, say goodbye to any Palestinian state in the near future.

  4. Michael Zvi Krumbein

    Well, this IS a country where if you tell people you have no children, they ask you why not? And I am talking about SECULAR people.

    1. It is so sad that secular people have low birth rates. But on the other hand it is good that we as humans are cutting ourselves down to size. However, Israel really can not afford that. I personally am secular but wish to have lots of children and adopt even more children. However, that is a few years away at least.

      What I find interesting tho is that a lot of MKs have exactly 3 children, Arab, Druze, or Jew.

  5. Michael Zvi Krumbein

    Jim has called my attention (accidentally) to a very important argument against a tw-state agreement. If there is such, an agreement, why in the world would Abbas (or whomever) want to dismantle the camps? They would be at least as useful to him as they were (are!) to our other enemies.

    So exactly what would we gain? Get ready for the demand of the Arab Western Galilee (right next to me) to be a fourth state. And then….

    1. And so on and so on. That is what I ask people:
      Do you really believe that peace will come if every Jew vacates the "west bank" and "east" Jerusalem? (Golan aside)

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