The LA Times blog Babylon & Beyond reports:

Seeing a gorgeous dancer on stage with a heavy-metal band is nothing unusual.

But when the dancer is Lebanese and the singer Israeli and they hold the flags of their respective countries — which remain in a state of war — alongside each other, you have a recipe for potential trouble.

The controversial joint appearance and performance by Lebanese belly dancer Johanna Fakhry (reportedly based in France) and the Israeli heavy-metal band Orphaned Land last month at the Hellfest music festival in Clisson, France only recently emerged in the news and is now stirring the pot.

Amateur video footage purportedly showing the performance depicts a member of Orphaned Land singing in what appears to be Hebrew while Fakhry dances around him wearing traditional belly dancer’s grab and holding a Lebanese flag.

She then approaches the singer and helps him hold a large Israeli flag before taking her own Lebanese flag and brandishing it alongside the Israeli before the audience.

“This is all about peace my friends,” the singer is heard singing in the clip. “We are all brothers and sisters. Now I want to see all of you jumping and party with us, OK?”

The audience responds with cheers and heavy-metal “devil horns” signs. Fakhry and the Israeli start jumping up and down to metal beats holding their flags.

The performance has stirred quite a bit of controversy and prompted much reaction and commentary, ranging from mere shock and outrage to support.

“Shame on her,” read one comment posted under one of the clips uploaded to YouTube that purportedly shows the performance. “She’s putting our Lebanese flag with the … Israeli flag. That’s really shame!!!!!”

Another commentary, meanwhile, applauded Fakhry’s move: “She’s really brave cause she wants peace,” while a third remained indifferent to the political gesture:  “More rock, more dancing … less bullets, rocks and bombs,” it read.

Lebanon and Israel remain in a state of war with each other and it is illegal under Lebanese law for Lebanese citizens to have public dealings with Israelis.

 Update: Further background:

“It was her idea to go on stage with the flags,” lead singer Kobi Farhi told Ynet. “She contacted me on Facebook and wanted us to cooperate and wave the flags. I explained to her that it would be amazing for us, but I didn’t want people to harass her. I didn’t want it to seem that we were using her and that she would be criticized in her homeland.

“But she insisted, despite everything, and I see her as a hero. I had a long conversation with her about the problems in the Middle East, and following the meeting she really wants to visit Israel.”

Update: Johanna Fakhry penned the following letter in response to reactions received.

Facing the amount of mails concerning the deed we’ve done on stage at the Hellfest Festival with Orphaned Land – that is to say raising and uniting on stage both Lebanese and Israeli flag – your worldwide reactions as bad or positive, as hateful or supportive as they can be, led us (Kobi and I) to write a statement explaining and not justifying our behaviour.

First of all, I know that politics, religion or other matters, moreover foreign ones, don’t hold an important place in a festival, but music is a tool for expression, and has to bring messages, history and legacy. This way, I wanted to take this opportunity so rare in history – witnessing on stage an Israeli group and a Lebanese dancer – to say that beyond the artistic exchange and our collaboration for the love of art, we were willing to make it a symbol of Peace. And these two flags that we held as high as the fist can rise, transcends all these years of war and suffering.

We both experimented, endured the vicissitude of this neverending war. But we belong to this new generation – those who behold far the horizon, who open the boundaries. Because the future dwells in metissage and solidarity between men.

Our opinions might separate us, but our fears are binding us together; our Art entwines us, just like metal music.

The escape from a world barely acknowledging us sometimes, or bringing credibility or legitimating our words. I’d say that this world is gonna hear us, as loud as our amplifiers can spit their guts, and for our people to hope for better days.

I’d say that we are the promise of the future.

Following the trail of my thoughts I wanted to thank Orphaned Land for bringing such open-mindedness to metal music and an echo to my request.

We are not the messengers, just the Hand.

Make this world a better place and spread this message of Peace and Unity.

France: Man assaulted over ‘Jewish appearance’

Two men of North African origin attack 21-year-old man with pellet gun after claiming he ‘looked Jewish.’ Victim sustains sever wounds.

Obviously “North African origin” is code for Muslim.

Someone asked me:

“Note that the police are trying to imply that it was a “mutual quarrel” and thus not not a clearly guilty party. How is this different than the 30′s and why wouldn’t this end in the same way?”

Its almost exactly the same.

The only difference is that William Hague and David Cameron aren’t in charge of immigration into Israel so when the Jews in Europe finally work out that the water around them is really boiling, they can jump somewhere “safe”.

A delegation of senior Fatah  leaders visited Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighborhood on Monday in order to send their condolences to the extreme haredi anti-Zionist group, Neturei Karta, which recently lost its leader, Rabbi Moshe Hirsch.

Rabbi Hirsch was one of the most vociferous anti-Zionist leaders, and even nurtured a long-term relationship with Fatah, the PLO, and Yasser Arafat. At one point, he even served as Arafat’s minister for Jewish affairs in the PA. Prior to this, he was his advisor.

Leading the Fatah delegation was Hatem Abdel Qader, an adviser on Jerusalem affairs to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Bilal a-Natasha, who holds the Jerusalem portfolio in the movement’s revolutionary council.

At the end of the visit, Abdel Qader said to Ynet that Fatah considered Rabbi Hirsch “the leader of the Palestinian Jews,” who are part of the Palestinian state.

According to Abdel Qader, “This is the first time we are making an official visit to Mea Shearim. From our perspective Mea Shearim is part of east Jerusalem, which will be part of the capital of the Palestinian state.”

He added that Fatah does not plan on giving up Mea Shearim in negotiations with Israel, “nor the members of the Neturei Karta movement.”

Actually, this is not Fatah’s first official visit to Mea Shearim.

By the way, I do not recall the palestinians ever speaking openly about Mea Shearim as east Jerusalem and part of a future palestinian state.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:10PM: As if there weren’t already enough reasons to not visit France.

Via No Pasaran, which also contains a blow-by-blow description of the festivities (hat tip: Shy Guy).

7:45PM: Here’s a great example showing the importance of context.

Version one (Ha’aretz)

The head of a Jerusalem yeshiva allegedly shot and wounded one of his students in early January.

The rabbi was arrested three weeks ago and is expected to be charged Tuesday with aggravated assault, illegal possession of a firearm and obstruction of justice.

On Saturday night, January 9, police received a report of a shooting incident in Jerusalem’s Haredi neighborhood of Beit Yisrael. At the time, eyewitnesses told police that two young men on a motorbike shot a yeshiva student and fled the scene of the crime.

The victim also fled the scene, but was located by police later that night in a hospital in the north.

Police arrested the Jerusalem rabbi three weeks ago along with an associate – allegedly the motorcycle driver.

Police had interrogated the rabbi, who was not initially a suspect, shortly after the incident because of his connection to the student. At the time he told police that he had been on his way to a torah class in the south when the shooting took place.

Police say they have eyewitnesses who identified the rabbi as the shooter, and evidence that the rabbi called the victim from a pay phone shortly before the incident and requested that he meet him at the location at which the shooting later took place.

Version two (Ynet)

Police arrested a yeshiva head on suspicion of shooting and wounding one of his students a few months ago, the Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court cleared for publication Tuesday.

Police say the rabbi used a motorcycle to approach the victim, fired at him, and when the victim began to run away fired again, wounding him. The rabbi then fled the scene, leaving the young man lying in his own blood.

“I am innocent. The truth will come out later,” the rabbi, a newly religious man who has already served two years in prison for attempted murder, told the court.

Police plan to recommend the rabbi stand trial on charges of aggravated assault along with another suspect, Yitzhak Zohar, who they suspect aided him.

Police claim the yeshiva head maintains close ties with the mob. He established the Jerusalem yeshiva after being released from prison using donations. Many of its students are rehabilitated criminals or prisoners serving an alternative sentence.

The rabbi served two years in jail for attempted murder after the central witness for the prosecution died mysteriously just one day before he was scheduled to testify. The defendant bolted to Belgium, from whence he was extradited.

Police say that on January 9 the yeshiva head called Eliyahu Liberty, the 23-year old victim, to come and clear out his personal items from the school and leave it immediately. The two had fought a few days earlier.

Liberty arrived at the school along with two friends, and they were approached by two motorcyclists, one of whom masked. The masked man fired at Liberty, who began to run away. However, the motorcycle followed and the masked man fired additional shots, two of which hit Liberty in the leg.

When the victim fell, the man dismounted the bike and hit Liberty on the head with the butt of his rifle. Security footage filmed by a nearby bakery shows the two men riding off, leaving Liberty lying in his own blood.

The victim said later he was afraid to report the incident, and asked his friends to take him to his father’s house in the north. However, when it became clear that he was losing too much blood his family evacuated him to a Haifa hospital.

Liberty, who also has an extensive criminal record including break-ins, blackmail, and robbery, refused to cooperate with the police investigation. However, police say they have collected incriminating evidence against the rabbi, including a bank transfer of over $7,000 to Liberty’s family.

The Jerusalem Post version also contains the relevant contextual information.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Ha’aretz had purposefully left out this information because of its anti-religious agenda.

7:08PM: Well put together video showing the PA’s policy of honoring terrorists.

5:05PM: Weird pro-Israel video of the day.

4:42PM: To the commenter who expressed joy over the death of actress Lynn Redgrave (sorry, Intense Debate gobbled up the comment but I received it via mail), I should point you to this:

Ms. Redgrave often chafed at the outspoken political views of her sister — who was a supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization — and in 1991, when they were performing together in London in Chekhov’s “Three Sisters,” they had a public spat after Vanessa referred to Americans as “imperialist pigs.” (They later reconciled.)

And this:

Lynn Redgrave is no Cain, but, brother, is she Able. Make that ready, willing and able, finally, after years of tight-lipped tolerance, to trash her older and infamously outspoken sibling. “My sister Vanessa’s actions are suddenly pissing me off,” Lynn, 48, told New York Post gossip columnist and longtime friend Cindy Adams in an astonishingly candid—and scathing-interview. “[She's] driving me crazy.” Distressed by Vanessa’s much publicized condemnation of U.S. (and allied) involvement in the Persian Gulf war, Lynn wanted, once and for all, to set the record straight: “[We are] not one person, one voice. We are two separate people. I’m thinking of changing my name to add my husband John Clark’s name. The waters are being muddied. I want them not to muddy me.”

The timing of this declaration of independence was hardly fortuitous, since it coincided with the actress sisters’ first-ever appearance onstage together—in London, in Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. British tabloids were instantly agog with news of the feud—SISTERS AT WAR screamed one London daily; SHAMED BY HER SISTER railed another—but the rift had been brewing for weeks. It all began when Vanessa, 54, declared in January at a peace rally in Barcelona. “We must unconditionally defend Iraq against American. British or Israeli troops.” In the British press and in the U.S., her comments have caused a furious backlash, including cancellation of her scheduled American tour in the Broadway hit Lettice and Lovage. Vanessa claimed she was quoted out of context but then made the mistake of providing the context by placing an ad of “clarification” in the New York Times. “I unconditionally oppose the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait,” she explained. But by the end of the half-page letter, she had cited as the source of the conflict not Iraq, but Israel—culpable, she implied, for its treatment of the Palestinians.

Inevitably the fires of outrage burned hotter. Not, of course, that furor is anything new to the radical Vanessa. For more than 20 years, the left-wing activist has made for controversial copy. She rallied against both nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War. once sold her home to fund a documentary on the Palestinians and four times ran for the British Parliament (and resoundingly lost). But perhaps her most notorious performance came at the Oscars in 1978, where she was awarded Best Supporting Actress for her role in Julia, a film about a young woman killed by the Nazis. She accepted the award with a pro-PLO speech that characterized Israel’s Zionist leaders as “hoodlums.” She was jeered and promptly placed on what amounted to a blacklist “banning” her for most of a decade from performing in America. The Boston Symphony Orchesta. for instance, dropped her from scheduled appearances in 1982 after receiving threats that pro-Israel demonstrators would picket her shows. (She sued and won a small settlement.)

Back then Lynn defended Vanessa. “People don’t know her,” she protested. “They just see the serious star who shouts and fights for what she believes in. People don’t see the private her. She’s a very generous and loving person.”

Growing up, the two were quite different—big sister Vanessa assertive and self-confident. Lynn shy and lonely—yet they maintained a special bond. “You can almost touch how close we feel,” Lynn once said. It was Vanessa more than the rest of her family—her father, the actor Sir Michael Redgrave; her mother, Rachel Kempson, now 80; or her brother, Corin, 51, also a politically involved actor—who gave young Lynn emotional support. “There was a great deal of tension [at home],” Lynn remembered. “My father was distant and didn’t communicate well with any of us. [Vanessa] was wonderful to me…. She’d read me books and make up stories for me.”

Years later, an accomplished actress in her own right, Lynn moved away from Vanessa and the suffocating burden of the Redgrave name. She settled in the U.S., where she still lives—in suburban Los Angeles—with her husband and manager, John Clark, and their three children.

Ironically, though Lynn and Vanessa are together professionally for the first time, they have never been more remote from one another personally. Backstage at London’s Queen’s Theatre, says Cindy Adams, the two do not speak. Nor are they likely to now. Among Lynn’s more biting observations about her sister was the suggestion that Vanessa’s causes are merely attention-getting devices. “I think she always thought of herself as Joan of Arc.” Lynn said. ‘There is definitely a dramatic angle attached. Perhaps it is the ultimate in being center stage.”

In the end, says Adams of Lynn’s declaration, “Her patriotism is stronger than her sisterly feelings.” Meaning in part that Lynn, who is the high-profile spokeswoman for Weight Watchers, and whose book, This Is Living: How I Found Happiness, is due out in May, doesn’t want Vanessa’s surly politics to sully her reputation—or employment potential. “I get phone calls about this,” said Lynn, who is not a U.S. citizen. “What’s happening is scary. I can understand [the outcry over Vanessa's remarks] because I live in the States…. I think of America as my country, my people.” she said, as angry and sad as she is resigned to the forseeable future. “I don’t think [Vanessa and I] shall be working together again.”

True, I found one article reporting that she read from the poetry of Guantanamo Detainees a few years ago, but I would think on the whole such sentiments would be better saved for her sister Vanessa.

1:30PM: A burnt mosque, “settlers” are accused, and I smell a rat.

6:18AM: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday attacked Big and Little Satan at a UN conference of the signatories of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad  on Monday called for states that threaten to use atomic weapons to be punished, a clear reference to a new US nuclear strategy released last month.

Speaking at a meeting of the 189 signatories of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), he urged “considering any threat to use nuclear weapons or attack against peaceful nuclear facilities as a breach of international peace and security.”

Such threats should meet with “swift reaction from the United Nations and termination of all cooperation of NPT member states with the threatening aggressor state,” Ahmadinejad said.

“The US has not only used nuclear weapons in the past, it continues to threaten other countries, including mine, with (nuclear arms),” said the Iranian president.

The delegations of the United States, Britain and France all walked out of the UN General Assembly chamber during the Iranian president’s speech.

Among the punishments that should be meted out to countries that use, or threaten to use, atomic weapons against other nations is suspension from the board of governors of the UN nuclear watchdog in Vienna, Ahmadinejad said.

The Iranian leader went on to attack Israel directly, saying, “The Zionist regime continues to threaten the countries of the Middle East with its arsenal. It continues to threaten the world’s countries with acts of terror and invasion, and even gets the necessary assistance for its nuclear program.”

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Today’s big joke? The French lecturing on acceptable and not acceptable behavior.

(Xinhua/Zhang Yuwei)

Sarkozy: Netanyahu’s foot dragging on peace process is unacceptable

In a meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres, French President Nicolas Sarkozy  has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has told his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres that he is disappointed with Benjamin Netanyahu and finds it hard to understand the prime minister’s diplomatic plan. Sarkozy made his comments at the Elysee Palace two weeks ago.

The latest criticism follows the diplomatic crisis between Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama and the subsequent fallout between Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

High-level Israeli officials briefed on the Peres-Sarkozy meeting called it “very difficult.” The officials, who asked to remain anonymous, said Sarkozy began criticizing Netanyahu at the start of the discussion and continued for around 15 minutes.

Sarkozy’s remarks were only slightly more measured than the condemnation he expressed over Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman last summer. “You must get rid of that man,” Sarkozy told Netanyahu at the time.

Sarkozy met with Obama the week before in Washington; the effect of the encounter was evident in the French leader’s discussion with Peres. Sarkozy expressed frustration at the continuing stagnation of the peace process and assigned much of the responsibility to Netanyahu.

“I’m disappointed with him,” he reportedly told Peres. “With the friendship, sympathy and commitment we have toward Israel, we still can’t accept this foot-dragging. I don’t understand where Netanyahu is going or what he wants.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:25PM: Yet more anti-Zionism-not-antisemitism from Britain:

A Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate in Yorkshire told a hustings meeting that “the power of the Jewish lobbies in Washington and Britain” are the reason a full arms embargo has not been imposed on Israel.

Madeleine Kirk, standing for the party in the new seat of York Outer, was speaking at the York University event on Wednesday afternoon.

A question was asked about whether the candidates believed arms sales to Israel should be banned.

Ms Kirk, a long-standing local city councillor, replied that an embargo should be in place, but was not, “because of the Jewish lobby”.

She then went on to back disgraced Lib Dem peer Jenny Tonge’s call for an inquiry to disprove allegations that Israeli army medical teams in Haiti “harvested” organs of earthquake victims.

Baroness Tonge was stripped of her role as the party’s health spokeswoman in the Lords following her comments in February.

When contacted by the JC, Ms Kirk said: “I apologise unreservedly for any offence caused by my remarks.

“I recognise that the allegations against the IDF’s humanitarian operation in Haiti are completely unfounded and utterly reprehensible. I was not aware of the allegations when asked about them at the hustings and responded without considering their full implications.”

Ms Kirk has been a regular critic of Israel. In January last year she spoke at a rally against the Gaza conflict organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

She told the crowd: “I wholeheartedly condemn the attack on Gaza by the Israeli forces.

“The vicious attack is completely out of all proportion to the threat posed by Hamas in the region and will only serve the militants in both the Gaza strip and Israel.”

11:20PM: Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu has said China is ready to deepen cooperation with Israel in areas such as trade and economy.

I hope this means more Chinese restaurants in Israel.

10:55PM: Introducing our latest weapon: Zionist Traffic Lights of Death.^TM

For the record, I think I’ve also located some antisemitic traffic lights on the way to work.

7:55PM: Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, currently in the US, is reportedly getting the cold shoulder from the Obama administration.

The US Administration rejected Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s request to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Special Mideast Envoy George Mitchell, Ynet has learned.

Barkat, who is visiting Washington, continued his attacks on the US government Wednesday, further embarrassing the Netanyahu government.

In an interview with MSNBC, the mayor said Israeli officials are uncertain about what the US attempts to signal. He added that what he termed bad American proposals will be futile in resolving the Mideastern conflict.

In the interview, Barkat said his positions on the Jerusalem issue are identical to PM Netanyahu’s views; however, an Israeli official expressed anger at the mayor’s conduct “at such sensitive period in US-Israel ties, when every housing unit in Jerusalem gains prominence.”

A senior Israeli official said “Jerusalem is a sensitive issue when we’re on the verge of entering talks.” Addressing Barkat’s visit and remarks, the official said: “He arrived here without any authority to engage in diplomatic issues and without any responsibility – he arrived and is causing damage.”

On Tuesday, Barkat met American reporters and was quoted as saying that President Obama’s move constituted a slap in Israel’s face.

While the Jerusalem mayor informed the Israeli embassy in Washington of his arrival, he independently coordinated meetings in Congress and with the US media, without coordinating his moves with Israeli diplomats in charge of these issues.

I have not been able to locate the MSNBC interview with Barkat, but here is a very revealing one with Fox News in which he lets his feelings on the Obama administration be known, albeit somewhat diplomatically.

5:36PM: The Knesset may strip of their immunity six MKs who met Libyan leader Moammar Ghaddafi  (not to be confused with immunizing those who strip near Moammar Ghaddafi, which is also advisable).

5:32PM: Moron of the day:

The May 25 Tel Aviv performance of American political soul/jazz pioneer Gil Scott-Heron is in doubt, only days after it was announced.

Appearing in London this week at the Royal Festival Hall, Scott-Heron said from the stage that he wouldn’t be going to Israel because “we don’t like wars,” The Guardian reported on Wednesday.

According to reports, his concert had been repeatedly disrupted by hecklers calling on him to cancel the Israel show.

Scott-Heron, best-known for the The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, was a leading voice in calling for the cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa, joining United Artist Against Apartheid in the 1980s.

Pro-Palestinian groups had appealed to the singer to cancel his show at the Barby  Club because it would be seen as giving legitimacy to Israel and its treatment of Palestinians.

A Facebook page urging the performer to cancel the Tel Aviv show was started and had gathered over 1,000 members.

No official announcement has been made from neither the artist’s management nor the local promoter of the show.

It’s a shame that Scott-Heron fails to realize the only people who actually like wars are those who pressured him to cancel his concert.

3:00PM: Robert De Niro was unavailable for comment.

2:40PM: Uri Blau, the Ha’aretz reporter who received confidential documents from ex-soldier Anat Kam,  is set to return them.

In the coming days Uri Blau’s attorneys are slated to submit to the security authorities the documents he received from ex-soldier Anat Kam. Attorneys Tali Lieblich and Mibi Mozer, who are representing the Haaretz journalist, told Ynet on Wednesday that they met with Blau in London, and that he informed them of the whereabouts of the documents in question.

Lieblich said, “We have received the information from Uri, and I would like to emphasize that the documents are in Israel and he did not take them anywhere. It is time this rumor is laid to rest. In the coming days we will hand them over to the authorities.”

Lieblich further noted that the defense establishment’s demand to receive all of the material in Blau’s possession is not new, but that Blau and the Haaretz newspaper refuse to hand it all over, and say the only material he plans to give to the defense establishment is that which he received from Anat Kam, since she waived confidentiality on it.

I’m not sure if this means the supposedly missing CDs are not really lost after all.

8:02AM: Photo of the day:

AFP

Ehud Barak: “Your boss really seems to know his stuff”

7:50AM: We are supposed to be a smart people, right?

6:25AM: Fascinating footage of 1951 Israel (hat tip: Matt).

6:10AM: Following a meeting with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has admitted that Hizbullah has a s***load of rockets.

Syria and Iran are providing Hezbollah with rockets and missiles of ever-increasing capability, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Tuesday following a meeting with Defense Minister Ehud Barak. He added that the Shiite organization was at a point where it “has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world.”

The two officials did not elaborate on the types of missiles, but the comments followed claims made in recent days that Hezbollah had received Scud missiles, which are capable of hitting wide areas within the State of Israel.

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Kouchner: “Who the hell invited Lily Tomlin?”

Clue: It involves a place on his anatomy where the sun don’t shine.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:30PM: Media bias of the day:

In this picture taken Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009, a domestic cat – an unlikely edition to an aspiring zoo, is seen climbing its cage at the Marah Land Zoo in eastern Gaza City. There’s little to do for entertainment for Gaza’s 1.4 million residents because of a two-year Israeli and Egyptian blockade, and the territory’s zoos became a popular form of past time. In 2008 the Marah Zoo was a fully functioning zoo, but during Israel’s January offensive, 90 percent of the animals died. Due to restrictions of the Israeli and Egyptian blockade – new animals can not be obtained – unless they are transported through the tunnels. As a result, there are not as large a variety of animals as before, but Gazans still flock to the zoo, due to the lack of sources of entertainment in the Gaza Strip.
(AP Photo/ Tara Todras-Whitehill)

Despite this Wikipedia entry of a caption, Ms Todras-Whitehill did not see it fit to mention another important aspect of the zoo, which incidentally could also account for some of the animals dying during Operation Cast Lead. But then again, given the lengths she seems to have gone to in order to take a picture of a cat and turn it into a piece of anti-Israel propaganda, I’m not surprised.

9:56PM: Israeli President Shimon Peres has offered Brazil ’100 years of friendship.’

Which means he’ll probably still be alive when that time period runs out.

7:48PM: Reasons to hate the French #869: Their Foreign Minister.

France fears that Israel no longer desires a Middle East peace deal, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Tuesday, adding that Paris remained deeply opposed to settlement building in the West Bank.

—-

Speaking on France Inter radio, Kouchner made clear he was not expecting any swift break through in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

“What really hurts me, and this shocks us, is that before there used to be a great peace movement in Israel. There was a left that made itself heard and a real desire for peace,” Kouchner said.

“It seems to me, and I hope that I am completely wrong, that this desire has completely vanished, as though people no longer believe in it,” he added.

Why do you think that is, Douchner?

I posit that it is due to Israelis waking up to the fact that the more we appease palestinian terrorism, the further away from peace we move.

7:40PM: Music interlude, dedicated to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

5:18PM: Dang! We’ve lost our number one ranking in the Al Qaeda Enemy charts to the Shi’ites who have reached number one with a bullet.

The leader of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Penninsula warned Tuesday that Shi’ite Muslims, particularly Iran, posed more danger to the world than either Jews or Christians.

“They [Shiites] are being driven by a greed to take over Muslim countries and they are full of a wish to annihilate Sunnis,” Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman al-Rashid said in an audio recording carried by the U.S. monitoring group SITE Intelligence.

“Their threat to Islam and its people is much bigger than that from Jews and Christians,” he added.

3:48PM: Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon in an interview with Danish TV.

Note: Don’t panic when you hear the interviewer at the beginning sounding like the Swedish chef. The interview itself is in English.

8:52AM: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama have met for almost two hours, followed by a standard photo and press conference only a White House statement that “The president reaffirmed our strong commitment to Israel’s security, and discussed security cooperation on a range of issues.”

Hmmm.

5:48AM: Of buses and barriers:

A Palestinian child is reflected on the glass of a bus as it drives past a section of Israel’s controversial separation barrier in al-Ram between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem.(AFP/Daniel Bar-On)

While on the subject of the barrier and buses, look here for a reminder of why the barrier exists.

Meanwhile.. France and Britain to the rescue?!

A joint French-British UN initiative would call on Israel and the Palestinians to hold immediate, independent investigations into war crimes allegations stemming from the war in Gaza, as part of a bid to send the Goldstone report back to Geneva and out of the hands of the Security Council or the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

The proposal comes before the United Nations General Assembly is scheduled Wednesday to deliberate on the Goldstone report on the war in the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

A source at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said that French President Nicolas Sarkozy informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the details of the initiative during a telephone conversation.

Netanyahu asked the French President to take action among European Union partners in an effort to form collective opposition to any resolution at the UN on the Goldstone report.

The initiative is a list of “red lines” which was adopted by the 27 members of the European Union. Its main points:

1. A resolution brought for the approval of the General Assembly will not include operational steps, like taking the matter to the Security Council or the International Court of Justice.

2. The resolution would call on Israel and the Palestinians to embark on an independent investigation into the events of Operation Cast Lead, and the allegations of war crimes.

3. The handling of the Goldstone report will return to the Human Rights Council, the UN body in Geneva. The parties will have to report to the council on the findings of their investigations in a few months.

According to the Foreign Ministry source, the document was delivered yesterday by the British and French permanent representatives at the UN to the Palestinian Authority delegation at the international body, as well as the representatives of Arab states, and the members of the Security Council.

Arab representatives at the UN are expected to complete Tuesday the first draft of a resolution that will be brought to the General Assembly for a vote.

The French and British has emphasized in their exchanges with the Arab representatives that if the “red lines” are not part of the resolution being prepared, the European Union will abstain, and may even vote against it – and expects that much of the international community will too.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

6:12PM: Here is the latest example of a PA official denying the Jews’ history in the Land of Israel

For a comprehensive treatment of this issue, see here.

6:00PM: An interesting article on Israeli innovation.

Americans think of war or religion when they think of Israel. But Israel is also an unusual high- tech success story.

A survey last May of non-American companies on the Nasdaq counted three Korean companies, five Irish businesses, five from the U.K. and six from Japan. Israel had 64.

In 2008, Israel drew more than twice the venture capital per citizen than the United States. It drew 30 times as much VC cash as continental Europe, and 350 times more than India.

There are some pretty familiar ethnic explanations for the Israeli tech miracle. Jews are supposed to be smart. Jews from overseas will fund Israeli companies regardless of quality. And so on.

But those explanations don’t suffice, as Dan Senor and Saul Singer point out in “Start Up Nation.” (Senor is my colleague at the Council on Foreign Relations). The Israeli record of innovation has less to do with tribe and more with policy. The Israeli military has also played a surprising role in the process.

The story starts with the old Israel, its suspicion of capitalism and its counterproductive affection for trade unions and communal farming. A decade and a half ago the Israeli government established a tech fund that it dubbed Yozma. Yozma’s goal was to lure venture capital to join it in creating Israeli projects. The very signal that Yozma’s creation sent changed Israeli attitudes about business dramatically. One executive paraphrased John Lennon on Elvis to describe the shift. “Before Yozma, there was nothing.”

Education, Women

But other forces contributed. The high level of education for both men and women meant new companies had someone to hire. During his tenure as finance minister earlier this decade, Benjamin Netanyahu pulled his own Margaret Thatcher by cutting taxes and government jobs and privatizing El Al, the national airline, and the Bezeq, the state-owned telecom company. Netanyahu phased out high-return government bonds, thereby forcing domestic capital to find an alternate place to invest. Financial reforms made the marketplace relatively transparent.

The authors identify several less-intuitive factors. One is Israeli tolerance for failure — bankruptcy isn’t the end of a career. Another is immigration. Sure, the immigrants from the former Soviet Union had degrees, but what mattered as much was the immigrant personality, that of the self-selected risk-taker willing to start over, and therefore, also “start up.” It also helped that academic and business doors were open to the immigrants.

Soldiers of Commerce

Yet the secret weapon of Israeli innovation is the Israeli military. The Israeli draft doesn’t merely ask soldiers to serve for two years; they serve for much of their adulthood, returning each year. This sounds like a career disrupter. But the Israel Defense Forces’ elite units end up functioning as the sort of fruitful techno clusters that Michael Porter of Harvard University identified as so hospitable to innovation.

The advantage of being associated with an Israeli elite unit — two famous names are Talpiot and 8200 — is like the advantage of going to Harvard Business School, only greater, says Israeli Tal Keinan.

Keinan is an Israeli investor and a 2001 graduate of Harvard Business School, so he’s able to put in American terms what the Israeli network does. He points out than a Harvard Business School reunion happens only every few years, and it is among people who shared only spreadsheets, not tents or rifles. Says Keinan of the IDF bond: “Imagine a reunion every year, and that it lasts two to four weeks.” Israelis are that much closer and more likely to help each other on projects.

Democratic Authority

Beyond the advantage of networking are a flatter hierarchy and the democratic habits of the Israeli military. The challenges of war on the house-to-house level have forced the Israeli military to hand authority down the chain. The skills even junior officers garner get them civilian jobs from people who themselves have served, and therefore know how to read a military resume.

An example of the military-high tech dynamic came when the president of PayPal Inc., Scott Thompson, was on the hunt for software to detect fraud, something American innovators believe they produce better than anyone else.

As a favor to an investor, Thompson met with Shvat Shaked, a co-founder of the Israeli company Fraud Sciences. To Thompson’s astonishment, Fraud Sciences was able to predict the likelihood of fraud better than any mechanism PayPal or others had developed. While at 8200 tracking terrorists, Shaked and fellow 8200 veteran Saar Wilf had discovered a special characteristic of those doing something wrong — they try to hide their traces. The innocent, by contrast, don’t. They had used that knowledge to write the most competitive software.

Muslim Opportunity

Soon investors nurturing projects in Muslim-majority countries will have their own Yozma, the new Global Technology and Innovation Fund that President Obama is touting.

But the Israeli record suggests that such public-sector funds, while exciting, aren’t the most important reason for high-tech innovation. “Most of these countries,” Senor says of the Middle East, “are not behind because they lack money.”

Senor suggests that strengthening the talent pool by allowing women in the workforce, strengthening the right to question and vote out officials within the military or outside it, capitalizing on the value of immigration, and voting in a government that encourages experiments all matter more.

The second message here is for U.S. companies, which tend to value veteran officer candidates less than their Israeli counterparts. U.S. veterans’ time in combat may translate into an ability to make the difference at some of our own start-ups.

4:15PM: Picture of the day:

An unidentified Palestinian man holds a pipe as he tries to push back Jewish settlers into a house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem November 3, 2009, in this handout picture released by the International Solidarity Movement. Jews took over the Palestinian home in Arab East Jerusalem on Tuesday after an Israeli court ruled in their favour in a lengthy land-ownership dispute — a practice repeatedly condemned by the United Nations. REUTERS/International Solidarity Movement/Handout

Wow, Reuters are surely not even hiding their bias if they are publishing pictures from the anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement.

Bonus bias points for the wording “An unidentified Palestinian man holds a pipe as he tries to push back Jewish settlers.” Yes, he certainly looks like he merely wants to push them back. As opposed to striking them with it, for example.

4:05PM: Sorry, had no time for updates so far today.

There has been no blogger who has followed this as closely as my friend Richard Landes. This is what he had to say after the decision:

Now we get to see how the French (and Western) MSM handle this. It’s a stunning victory for Karsenty and loss for Enderlin and France2 who initiated this case when they didn’t have to.

In order for an appeals court to reverse a decision, they must have strong evidence to the contrary.

The fact that they did indicates that their written decision will be very critical of France2. The implications of this decision are immense.

Be sure to check out his blog for updates and further discussion on the decision.

French soldiers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).(AFP/Dominique Faget)

Update: I knew it looked familar..