Israellycool

British journalist Johann Hari has written one of the most appalling, ill-informed op-eds I have ever read regarding Israel.

Here’s a taste:

When you hit your 60th birthday, most of you will guzzle down your hormone replacement therapy with a glass of champagne and wonder if you have become everything you dreamed of in your youth. In a few weeks, the state of Israel is going to have that hangover.

She will look in the mirror and think – I have a sore back, rickety knees and a gun at my waist, but I’m still standing. Yet somewhere, she will know she is suppressing an old secret she has to face. I would love to be able to crash the birthday party with words of reassurance. Israel has given us great novelists like Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, great film-makers like Joseph Cedar, great scientific research into Alzheimer’s, and great dissident journalists like Amira Hass, Tom Segev and Gideon Levy to expose her own crimes.

She has provided the one lonely spot in the Middle East where gay people are not hounded and hanged, and where women can approach equality.

But I can’t do it. Whenever I try to mouth these words, a remembered smell fills my nostrils. It is the smell of shit.

And it gets worse.

I had a hell of a fisking planned too, but since Honest Reporting has already done the job, I will rather point you to theirs.

Meanwhile, I have this message to Hari: If you want to stop smelling sh*t, stop writing get your head out of your ass (thanks Paco).

Update: Separated at Birth: Turds of a Feather Edition

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.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb “Massacre” Erekat, and deceased Hamas mouse Farfur.

Spain’s Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos and his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki, and The Muppet Show’s Statler and Waldorf.

Blast from the Past: Another Statler and Waldorf Separated at Birth.

Former US President Jimmy “Dhimmi” Carter and an alien.

Of course, this is not the first time he has reminded me of an alien or a sci-fi character.

Former US President/current Israel hater Jimmy Carter, and evil Star Wars emperor Palpatine.

Who would have thought that employing palestinians in a restaurant was a recipe for disaster?

The thwarting of an alarming terror plot was cleared for publication on Thursday, almost three weeks after a joint Shin Bet and police operation led to the arrest of two Palestinian employees of the ‘Grill Express’ restaurant in Ramat Gan.

The men, Eihab Abu Rial and Anas Salum, both 21-year-old residents of the West Bank city of Nablus, had planned to lace dishes served at the establishment with a powerful toxin without odor or taste, in the hopes of killing as many patrons as possible.

The two did not have working permits and were residing in Israel illegally. While in Nablus, they had been recruited to the al-Aqsa Martyr’s Bridges, the military wing of Fatah, under the guidance and funding of Hizbullah.

The men were arrested by police investigators following information obtained by the Shin Bet, several short days before they planned to carry out the attack.

Toxin was to come from West Bank

In their questioning the men told interrogators they were to receive the poison from two operatives in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus – Husseini Salag and Hani Quabi – who are still wanted by security forces.

The white substance is virtually undetectable and affects its victims approximately four hours after being ingested.

Salag, they said, also sought to use them to bring a suicide bomber across the border.

Defense officials say they are concerned Quabi continues to seek the means to carry out an attack in Israel using illegal Palestinian residents.

A similar incident occurred five and a half years ago in Jerusalem. At the time, three Arab residents of east Jerusalem were arrested before their plan to poison Israeli patrons at the Rimon Café in central Jerusalem could be realized (I blogged about it at the time -ed). The three had also planned to carry out a suicide bombing during a right-wing demonstration. The cell had been found to operating under Hamas.

Some four years ago a Fatah cell was arrested in Qalqiliya, the group had been planning to detonate an explosive device encased in HIV-infected blood in a crowded Tel Aviv area.

Learning points:

1. It is probably not a good idea to be employing palestinians.

2. I sometimes understate things. It is a downright irresponsible - if not criminal - thing to do.

3. The same applies to trusting Fatah as a “peace partner,” given they still have a terror arm trying to perpetrate heinous crimes like in this case.

4. As does employing in a restaurant a guy with the first name “Anas”, a last name similar to a food illness, and a eerie resemblance to Admiral Ackbar, a species of Mon Calamari.

With this picture, Reuters seems to be taking the micky out of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Or rather, putting it in.

Update: Separated at Birth?

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former US Vice President Al Gore

Update: And still on the subject of Pakistani leaders and Separated at Birth, it looks like pre-shaggy Saddam Hussein has been elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Some palestinian man and Wilson from Home Improvement.

By the way, check out the caption to the photo of the palestinian man:

A Palestinian man stands near the scene of a stabbing incident near the Damascus gate in the Old City of Jerusalem March 18, 2008. A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli rabbi in Arab East Jerusalem on Tuesday, emergency services said, in an attack likely to further increase already high tensions in the city. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (JERUSALEM)

Despite the fact the picture relates to a story involving palestinian terrorism against an Israeli, the Reuters photographer with the Arabic name has managed to take a picture that alludes to Israel’s security fence and the idea that palestinians are “caged in.”

Update: I wasn’t paying attention, but luckily Israellycool contributor Elder of Ziyon was, as he points out the even bigger example of bias in this caption.

While there are parts of East Jerusalem that are predominantly Arab, to categorize all of East Jerusalem as “Arab” is an editorial comment, not a statement of fact. To say that the Old City is “Arab East Jerusalem” is pretty dishonest, even if there are more Arabs living there now than others. It is effectively enshrining Jordan’s illegal annexation and ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem for 19 years as being legitimate, and the existence of Jewish-owned lands in East Jerusalem as illusory. It is also meant to make the existence of a yeshiva in the Old City’s “Muslim” quarter look as if it is a recent “settlement,” when in fact the yeshiva is occupying the building of the only Jewish school or synagogue that was not destroyed by Jordan in 1948 (Torat Chaim, est. 1886.) All additional buildings that Ateret Cohanim own were purchased legally.

East Jerusalem is much larger than the Old City, of course, and using the term “Arab East Jerusalem” to describe something that happened in the Old City would be like saying that the Upper East Side crane accident over the weekend occurred in “New York State.” It appears that Reuters is specifically choosing this terminology in order to render Israeli building in other parts of East Jerusalem, such as in Har Homa, as being illegitimate, since Reuters considers it “Arab” land - notwithstanding that most of Har Homa was also owned by Jews in 1948.

Some palestinian terrorist who became intimate with a “Zionist drone”, and actor Ben Stiller.

Apparently, young Spock was martyred for Hizbullah’s cause.