Israellycool

“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

- Newton’s third law of motion (paraphrased)

And now to paraphrase Elvis Costello, we couldn’t call this unexpected:

The best course of action to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners is the kidnapping of more Israeli soldiers, Abu Yousef, the military spokesman for An-Nasser Brigades, the Military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, said in a statement on Thursday.

He said that the prisoner swap between Israel and Hizbullah has shown that kidnap can be a useful bargaining tool in brokering deals to release prisoners and that it is possible to defeat the Israeli army. This goes some way to confirming several analysts predictions that the deal, executed on Wednesday, would embolden both Palestinian and Lebanese resistance fighters.

He added that the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, kidnapped in 2006 by militants from the Gaza Strip, should not be released until it was possible to arrange a deal that satisfies the needs of the Palestinian people.

And don’t think it’s just Israeli soldiers. Each and every Israeli citizen - yours truly included - is at risk.

Freed Lebanese murderer/terrorist Samir Kuntar, and you-know-who (no, not Voldemort).

(Thanks to Lila for drawing my attention to this picture).

A number of years ago, my father was interviewed for the Jewish Migrant Oral History Project. Thankfully, I have a copy of the interview, and I will be publishing excerpts from it in his memory.

Interviewer: John can we begin the interview by you telling us your full name and where and when you were born please?

Dad: My full name, birth certificate, Joachim David —–. John David —–, born Lipke, L I P K E near Landsberg an der Watte, Province Brandenburg. Landsberg was the nearest town and Province Brandenburg about one million people, predominantly farming. Small farming.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about your family background. Who were your parents? Could you name them for us?

Dad: My father Hans David —– born 1896. Nicholai, Upper Salesia, Danzig Corridor. My mother Freida —– born Catowitz, also Upper Silesia – Danzig corridor. The importance of the Danzig Corridor being mentioned is it changed hands every war between Germany, Poland and whoever.

Interviewer: What was their background? How did they come to be in this part of the world?

Dad: My father’s family; his mother became a widow when my father was four and she lived with her brother Louie Berger. My father had schooling and then he went to war. He was the only Jew in the class and the whole class volunteered so he volunteered. He came back from the war and his relations there were quite well off. They were merchants. And because of them being so smug about everything my father developed an aversion to business people and he was going to study medicine. But lo and behold he didn’t have the money so he got into a veterinary course in Giessen. End of story he decided to really rub it in, he finished his veterinary course and then did a doctorate by working in an abattoir as director. He worked in the abattoir because that was close to where his mother lived and she was getting old and she hadn’t seen very much of her son.

I had assumed that the marriage was arranged because my father was 32 when he married, and my mother turned 21. Also my mother’s parents or family bought that practice in Germany, in Lipke. It was a government practice and he could have private patients if he wanted. It was a fixed income. So they moved there to Lipke after marriage. My mother found it a little hard at first because her family were closer to being more German than my father’s family who were ultra-religious. As my mother tells the story, she was introduced to my father’s family and the men sat in one part of the room, the women in the other. They moved to Lipke, and I was born in 1930 and all went well. My father belonged to all the organisations there, the ex-servicemen, the Front Line - that means active service - who have seen active service and had the medals. Due to my father’s background, my parents left Lipke and drove something like 15 kilometres to Landsberg, where there was a Jewish community, for the Sabbath. They drove there Friday afternoon and came back Saturday after the Sabbath. And they did this without thinking.

Part of my father’s work was servicing what they called a ‘gutt,’ a large property owned by, I won’t say nobility, but so-called junkers, the aristocracy. One was an ex-serviceman, ex-officer and he hadn’t married yet, and they were running wild, and doing things, but he was also like my father; he couldn’t sleep too well and he read a lot. So he and my father started exchanging books, but then he got married and domesticated and they became friends. He was the one later who told my father not to be crazy, to get out of Germany.

Sickening.

Where’s a Hellfire missile when you need one?

Update: The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office has released this video on Kuntar:

Hot on the heels of news that the Lebanese government has declared Wednesday a national holiday to celebrate the release of Samir Kuntar and the other terrorists, comes word (from more than one Lebanese blogger) that Kuntar may be running for parliament in the next elections.

Welcome to Lebanon, a country where smashing in the skull of a 4-year-old girl could actually help your election campaign.

Question: Who is xxxx in this report?

xxxx welcomed the execution of a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hizbullah. xxxxx congratulated the family of released Lebanese murderer Samir Kuntar and sent his condolences to the Lebanese families receiving their loved ones’ bodies as part of the deal.

Answer is below the fold.

With brutal murderer Samir Kuntar about to be released in a few hours, here’s another reminder of the lives he mercilessly snuffed out.

Again, I can only hope Israel was smart enough to have placed some poison in Kuntar’s food, to guarantee him a slow and painful death.

Note: Props to AP for publishing this photo. I am normally very critical of their (biased) coverage, so I am more than willing to acknowledge when they get it right.

Updates (Perth, Australia time):

11:19AM: You will find here some pictures of Kuntar and friends being processed for released.

Is it just me, or does Kuntar look like Adolph Hitler after sucking on some hydrogen?

11:45AM: The IDF believes Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah will leave his bunker and “make a special appearance to greet Samir Kuntar upon his arrival in Beirut.”

Here’s hoping this happens, and an IDF jet is there to help Kuntar and Nasrallah make a special appearance to greet Yasser Arafat and the other terrorists upon their arrival in hell.

12:22PM: Israel National News reports:

Palestinian Authority media, controlled by “moderate” PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, has hailed the release of Samir Kuntar, saying the man who crushed the skull of four-year-old Einat Haran in 1979 “epitomizes the ideal Palestinian prisoner.”

I couldn’t agree more.

And that, my friends, tells you everything you need to know about Israel’s “peace partner.”

12:30PM: Ha’aretz reports that Hassan Chicken Nasrallah will apparently not attend the prisoner reception in Lebanon after all.

1:50PM: As the Jerusalem Post reports, the Regev and Goldwasser families are still hopeful their sons are still alive.

2:05PM: The exchange was supposed to happen 5 minutes, but I haven’t seen anything. The Ha’aretz news ticker reports that the swap is to be delayed by one hour, citing Hezbollah`s Al-Manar TV.

2:15PM: The soldiers are reportedly now on the border, but there’s no report of their condition.

2:16PM: They’ve been transferred to the Red Cross.

2:45PM: 2 coffins have been laid out at the border crossing.

This is a sad day for Israel.

3:50PM: Ynet reports:

Cries of horror sounded at the Regev and Goldwasser homes Wednesday, as family members witnessed the TV broadcast of the prisoner exchange, in which the coffins of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were shown being turned over to the Red Cross.

—-

Eldad Regev’s aunt, Hanna, collapsed upon seeing the images of her nephew’s coffin and was attended to by Magen David Adom paramedics, which were standing by.

My heart goes out to the Regev and Goldwasser families.

4:31PM: Ma’an reports that the body of terrorist Dalal Al-Mughrabi was one of those to be returned in the swap, contrary to an earlier report from Israel’s Channel 10.

Despite acknowledging being jipped, Israel is still going ahead with the terrorists-for-corpses exchange.

Syrian President Bashar “Dorktator” Assad sticks his neck out to avoid Ehud Olmert in Paris.

‘I’ll be Back’ meets ‘I’ll be Black’: Arnold Schwarzenegger says he’d work for Obama.

The world’s oldest blogger is now of the non-moveable type.

More Iranian fauxtography has been found.

I just got back from the morning prayer service. As I was leaving the synagogue, a drunk man and woman were walking by.

Drunk woman: You wouldn’t happen to have a mobile phone we could borrow?

Aussie Dave: No, sorry (I really didn’t).

Drunk woman: What about in there (pointing to synagogue). Is there a phone we could use?

Aussie Dave: I really don’t know. I am just visiting, but I haven’t seen a phone in there (I really hadn’t, and I wasn’t going to bring a drunk man and woman in to look around for obvious reasons).

Drunk woman: Bullsh**! I’m a Christian you know, and I would help a stranger in need.

Aussie Dave: No need to curse! I would like to help. I really don’t have a phone and I don’t think there is a phone in there (pointing to synagogue).

Drunk man: What do you expect? He’s a f****** Jew (as the two walk off).

Aussie Dave: Hey. WATCH IT.

Drunk man and woman: [Cursing]

Aussie Dave: (sarcastically) Yeah, you’re REAL GOOD Christians.

You are probably almost as shocked at my brazenness as you are with the ease in which the anti-Semitism raised its ugly head. But you have to understand I was so infuriated that part of me actually wanted a fight. Bear in mind that this was the same area of Perth in which some Jewish teenagers were physically and verbally assaulted by a group of youths who shouted anti-Semitic slurs about a month and a half ago. I guess part of me wanted to show these cretins that we are capable of fighting back. Which was, of course, stupid, because:

1) for all I know, the man (or woman) had a knife, glass bottle, or black belt in Karate.

2) I live in a Jewish state which has shown the world we are more than capable of fighting back.

But I was so angry, I would have turned in to the Incredible Hulk (had I also been exposed to gamma rays as a child).

This was my first first-hand experience with anti-Semitism in a very long time, and while I read about it frequently, it both shocked and angered me.

Have I mentioned I am glad I live in Israel?

Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair has had to call off his visit to Gaza, and Hamas would like you to know it’s Israel’s fault (naturally).

The deposed Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said on Tuesday that Quartet Middle East envoy, Tony Blair cancelled his visit to the Gaza strip as requested by Israel ”so that he won’t see the catastrophic siege”.

Yeah, that and the fact someone threatened to kill him.

International quartet envoy Tony Blair’s planned trip to the Gaza was cancelled on Tuesday following what was described as “specific security threats” that made the visit impossible.

Blair told Ma’an that he first knew of the threats on his life yesterday evening but was still keen to go ahead with the visit. He said it was when the threats became “more specific and more credible” that he decided to cancel the trip.

No doubt, these threats were nothing more than the brainchild of Zionist operatives, designed to prevent Blair from seeing the diabolical siege in Gaza, replete with blackouts, flour shortages, and starvation.

Because as we all know, palestinians don’t kill those who they see as a threat.

As I posted yesterday, the foreign press photographers are portraying child-murderer Samir Kuntar as anything but the monster he is, taking photo after photo of small children holding up his picture.

Today, we have this stark example of the lengths they will go to.

A Palestinian boy (L) holds a picture depicting Lebanese prisoner Samir Qantar during a protest in Gaza City calling for the release of prisoners held in Israeli jails July 7, 2008. REUTERS/Ismail Zaydah

Despite the fact the picture contains many people holding up pictures of different prisoners terrorists, somehow the caption refers only to the palestinian boy who is holding up the picture of Kuntar. The absurdity of this is amplified by the fact the caption writer has to note the child’s location, given he is but one of a crowd of people.

Reuters, could you get any more obvious?

With the imminent release of brutal murderer Samir Kuntar, the foreign press photographers have been having a field day with pictures of small children holding up his picture. I doubt there could be a more obvious ploy to evoke sympathy for this monster.

Yet not even one picture of the only children who really matter in this story.

That’s where I (and you) come in.

Einat and Yael Haran

And here’s a reminder of what Samir Kuntar did to them:

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat. They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. “This is just like what happened to my mother,” I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl’s skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.