Ariel Sharon, who suffered a debilitating stroke nearly six years ago while serving as prime minister of Israel and remains in a coma-like state, responds to some requests and, despite being fed intravenously, has put on weight, according to his son Gilad Sharon.

“When he is awake, he looks at me and moves fingers when I ask him to,” Mr. Sharon said in a telephone interview. “I am sure he hears me.”

—-

A year ago Mr. Sharon, who is 83, was transferred from a hospital outside Tel Aviv to the family ranch in southern Israel. But Gilad Sharon said that the stay was brief and that his father was returned to the hospital, where he had remained. He hopes that in the coming year his father will come home permanently.

“The problem is Israeli bureaucracy,” Mr. Sharon said. “I think it would be better for him to be at home.” He added that his father had been visited every day since his stroke either by him, his wife, Inbal, or his brother Omri. “We haven’t missed a single day,” he added.

He said that in recent times there had been no improvement in his father’s condition.

The book asserts that doctors and nurses urged the family to let Mr. Sharon die after his stroke in January 2006 because, as it paraphrases one doctor as saying, “Based on the CT scan, the game was over.” The Sharon brothers would not hear of it and insisted on an operation and other efforts to keep their father alive.

“I told them about a dream I had had many years ago,” Mr. Sharon recounts in the book, speaking of his discussions with the medical staff of Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. “In that dream I was with my father in the hospital. He was lying in bed, surrounded by medical staff, and they had all either given up or lost hope and were about to leave, and my father didn’t say a thing, but he stared at me with this look, with those green-gray eyes of his, and I knew I would never give up, and that I simply would not leave him. This was a dream I had when my father was healthy and strong and the scenario was completely divorced from reality. I did not tell a soul about the dream at the time, but now I shared it with them and my fear that it was happening now and that I would never be able to forgive myself if we did not fight to the end.”

Meanwhile, it would seem Gilad is the one who is brain-dead.

In the book, Gilad Sharon says he gave his father the idea of Israel’s unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza

Because they obviously stand for truth and care about us.

Reuters

Hamas on Sunday accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of “misleading” Israelis by creating the false impression that there was some kind of progress in negotiations for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.

In an early morning interview with Army Radio, Netanyahu confirmed that contacts started anew a number of weeks ago to gain the young man’s release.

“There has been a renewal of contact with the German negotiator,” he said, adding that his office is dealing with the Schalit dossier on a continuous basis in a variety of ways.

The central channel, he said, is “negotiation [through the German mediator] that started a number of weeks ago.” Netanyahu would not offer any details of the talks.

Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Lebanon, told Al-Jazeera that Netanyahu’s talk about progress was aimed at “easing domestic pressure on his government.”

His words came after Channel 2 reported on Saturday that German mediator Gerhard Konrad traveled to Gaza three weeks ago to speak with Hamas about a deal for Schalit.

Hamdan confirmed that a German mediator had visited the Gaza Strip recently in another bid to achieve a breakthrough, but to no avail.

“Hamas informed the German mediator that it won’t make any concessions on its demands and there would be no return to phase zero of the talks,” Hamdan said.

He added that the mediator, whom he did not name, did not bring anything new and had only a few meetings during his stay in the Gaza Strip.

Holding Netanyahu responsible for the lack of progress in efforts to reach a prisoner-exchange agreement, the Hamas official said: “Hamas’s position is very clear. The negotiations and discussions must be resumed from the point where they stopped. We won’t return to stage zero.”

Sources close to Hamas in the Gaza Strip said that the main differences between the two sides remain over whether Israel should release Israeli Arab prisoners and those who carried out big terrorist attacks.

The sources said that Hamas and Israel would still need months to bridge the gap between them.

Meanwhile, a a senior General Staff officer has warned that our response to the kidnapping of another soldier into Gaza will be no less severe than Operation Cast lead.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:02PM: BREAKING NEWS: Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah lies.

The Israel Defense Forces is taking aim at a new claim by Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah who last week presented what he said was an Israeli rifle to visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Nasrallah said the weapon, placed in a felt-lined box with a row of bullets, was captured during the guerrilla group’s 2006 war with Israel.

Israeli military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich said Sunday the gun appears to be an assault rifle that Israel hasn’t used since 1974 – meaning it likely wasn’t captured during the war.

Ahmadinejad had met with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah at Iran’s embassy in Beirut prior to the Iranian leader’s departure from Lebanon.

Who’d have thought?

8:35PM: UN: Bla bla bla bla.

8:12PM: Israel’s answer to SpongeBob SquarePants?

MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images

8:05PM: Israel has invited the 33 rescued Chilean miners to Israel.

Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov on Monday extended an official invitation to the 33 Chilean miners who were rescued last week to experience a “spiritual journey” this Christmas in the Holy Land.

The men, who were trapped underground for 68 days in a mine in Chile, are invited to Israel with their spouses for a week-long, all-expense paid sightseeing tour of various sites holy to Christianity.

“Your bravery and strength of spirit, your great faith that helped you survive so long in the bowels of the earth, was an inspiration to us all,” the tourism minister wrote in his invitation. “It would be a great honor for us to welcome you as our guests in the Holy Land.”

“This December, Christians around the world – and here in the Land of Jesus – will celebrate Christmas. During that time, we welcome tens of thousands of pilgrims and we would be pleased to offer you this uplifting and extraordinary experience, as our guests.”

No word yet on whether mistresses are also invited.

5:26PM: A sculpture of comatose former PM Ariel Sharon has gone on display.

3:45PM: What, me funny? According to the blurb on YouTube, this next video is:

The first episode of the USAID-funded cartoon campaign for the Palestinian Authority, designed by PACE and developed by Sketch in Motion, Inc.

This episode is about public transportation, and sends a message to the public about safety on the roads in a humorous way. Join us as Abu Awad dodges shawarma restaurants and crazy drivers on his way through the West Bank.

I guess we all have different ideas about humor.

12:52PM: Here in Israel, something happened last week that is only slightly more likely than peace in the Middle East.

Statisticians said the probability was abysmal, conspiracy theorists said the game was rigged, but some lucky gamblers believed this could happen: In an odds-defying incident, Saturday night’s state lottery numbers were an almost identical repeat of the lottery numbers from September 21. Ninety-five people picked the lucky combination and won.

The numbers that rolled out during a live studio broadcast this past Saturday, in lottery number 2194 of Miphal HaPayis, Israel’s state lottery, were 36, 33, 32, 26, 14, 13, and an additional ‘strong’ number 2. Moments after the celebration in the studio, curious web surfers were amazed to notice that these same numbers happened to roll out less than a month ago; on September 21, in lottery number 2187, the winning numbers were 13, 14, 26, 32, 33, 36, and a ‘strong’ number of 1. The order in which the numbers were picked was reversed.

“We are in the business of luck, and when it comes to chances and probabilities anything is possible, even the rare and infrequent, like in this case,” said Dr. Chaim Melamed, the statistics expert for Miphal HaPayis.

Three players guessed all seven numbers correctly, including the ‘strong’ number, and won NIS 4 million ($1,116,694) each. This is the highest numbers of first prize winners since 2006. Ninety-two players guessed a combination of six numbers correctly, and won NIS 4,000-NIS 6,561 ($1,116-$1,831) each.

Melamed stated that people often gamble on numbers that won previously. “I assume it’s like the people who hang on to birthdays,” he said. “There are people that hang on to numbers that were picked in the past. This time, this wish was fulfilled. It’s rare, but it’s still luck.”

Trillion-to-one chance

According to Zvi Gilula, a professor of statistics at the Hebrew University, getting all seven lottery numbers exactly correct, under normal circumstances, is one in 18 million. Guessing six numbers correctly, excluding the ‘strong’ number, is one to 2,250,000.

Gilula, an expert on gambling, estimated the probability of the same set of numbers being randomly picked twice a few weeks apart is no higher than one in 4 trillion, or 0.00000000000025.

“Usually, this is the type of numbers they use to describe the probability of life on Mars,” Gilula said.

Yitzhak Melechson, a professor of statistics at the University of Tel Aviv, said that the incident of six numbers repeating themselves within a month is an event of once in 10,000 years, and addressed the issue of a mishap.

“A bend in the lottery machine is a much more complex issue. If certain numbers were repeated more often it could attest to something, but it’s not the case in the repeated sextet.”

9:36AM: This next story is sure to disappoint many.

Some 11,500 students, among them 500 Arab and Druze Israelis, began the academic year Sunday at the Ariel University Center of Samaria, which is located in the West Bank, beyond the Green Line.

“I scored high on my psychometric exam and could have enrolled in Tel Aviv University and other institutions, but here the enrollment process was quicker. This was the first place that accepted me, so I decided to go for it,” said 20-year-old Tayibe resident Manar Diuani, who is studying computer science.

A group of prominent Israeli artists recently caused a public uproar when they drafted a letter declaring their refusal to perform in Ariel’s new cultural hall for political reasons.

Diuani, an Arab-Israeli, told Ynet the settlement issue does not concern her. “I separate studies from politics. I don’t think where I go to school will matter to anyone – only my grades and diploma will matter.”

Another Arab student, who chose to remain anonymous, said, “We did not come here because of the ideology; we came here to get an education, and we don’t want to link this to politics.”

Asad, 25, from the Druze village Hurfish, was recently discharged from the IDF after serving as an officer in a secret unit. He rents a room at the university’s dorms and is studying for a BA degree in civil engineering. “I didn’t take the psychometric exam, so the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) was out of the question. Beersheba is too far, and as a family man I wanted to stay close by,” said Asad, who is married with a daughter.

“Ariel is a large city that has existed for many years and will continue to exist without me. In this case, politics is pushed to the side,” he told Ynet.

Joana Moussa, a 20-year-old behavioral sciences student from Abu Snan, an Arab village in the Galilee region, said politics does play a role. “All of the students in Ariel fear the day will come when they’ll be told their diploma cannot be recognized because they studied in the territories. But as of today, our diploma is recognized everywhere.

“I am very pleased because the professors give us personal attention and there is no racism here. Perhaps in other places people would have commented on my name or ethnicity, but here I’m accepted for who I am,” she said.

Some three years ago Ariel College was recognized as a “university center,” a move that drew harsh criticism from leftist groups.

Bring on the boycott!

6:14AM: An anti-Israel campaigner rewrites history as he explains why Britain supported Zionism, including claims both Balfour and Churchill were “vicious antisemites.”

Of course, our intrepid historian is himself not antisemitic – just anti-Zionist – even as he explains that “Herzl, the founder of Zionism, promised that he would take the Jews away from these [revolutionary] movements and make them into colonists who would go and pillage other countries”

According to Egyptian sources, Israel provided Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak with an outline of Qatar’s proposal, which would allow it to bring construction materials and other goods into the Strip.

The Qataris would have undertaken reconstruction of infrastructure and earned an Israeli declaration recognizing Qatar’s important status in the Middle East. In exchange, the Israeli diplomatic mission the Qataris closed during Operation Cast Lead would reopen.

Israel’s rejection of the plan, it seems, resulted largely from Egyptian opposition.

An Egyptian source said his country was acting in coordination with Israel and the Quartet (the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia ). The source added: “Egypt has barred free passage of goods across its border into Gaza, despite criticism from other Arab countries and from the Egyptian public, and it would be inappropriate for Israel, in an effort to serve its own interests “to harm these agreements and put Egypt in an impossible position of being the only party blocking the passage of goods into Gaza.”

Relations between Qatar and Egypt are tense, in part because of the sharp criticism voiced on Al Jazeera of Egypt and its Gaza policy. The TV station is owned by the emirate’s ruling family. Qatar has been pursing its own independent foreign policy. It is seen in Egypt as an Iranian ally acting contrary to Arab interests. It is also, however, an American ally.

In case you thought Arab countries like Egypt really care about their palestinian brethren..

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

7:05PM: Israeli model Bar Refaeli may star in the next Transformers movie.

Rumor has it she plays a transformer who is disguised as an iPad.

7:00PM: Iran is once again threatening Israel.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, said Wednesday that if Israel attacked Iran it would be destroyed within a week.

Speaking at a political conference of ultra-conservatives in Iran’s north, Mashaei said, “If the Zionist regime attacks Iran, the Zionists will have no longer than a week to live.”

The semi-official Fars news agency quoted him as saying that the Islamic Republic would destroy Israel “in less than 10 days”.

No longer than a week or less than ten days? He sounds a little indecisive to me.

10:34AM: Israel has released Hamashole “Carrot top” Mahmoud Abu Tir(d).

8:44AM: Gaza – world’s “largest concentration camp” and huge party city.

8:12AM: Photo of the day:

Palestinian workers destroy watermelons grown in Jewish settlements , near the West Bank city of Jenin, Tuesday, May 18, 2010. A Palestinian law, signed in April 2010 prohibits the sale of Israeli settlement products in the West Bank. (AP Photo/Mohammed Ballas)

Either people in Gaza are not really starving, or the palestininians would rather score cheap political points against Israel than help their people.

8:04AM: Meet the IDF soldier from Canada who’ll be hitching a ride with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Courtesy of Israel's Government Press Office

Everyone who knows Jonathan Fader heard about his conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu.

It was covered in the Jerusalem Post and the former Richmond, B.C., resident’s face was all over Israeli television.

His friends posted messages on his Facebook wall and soon there was a picture of the camouflaged and smiling Fader standing in front of the Israeli prime minister.

His mom? She read about it on Facebook, too.

“It’s definitely going to be a moment in life that I’ll always remember,” Fader said in a telephone interview with CTV.ca from the kibbutz he lives on southeast of Haifa, recalling the meeting that resulted in an unexpected ticket home to Canada.

It all transpired Tuesday when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited an Israeli Defense Forces training exercise.

The military picked the two closest soldiers to have a chat with the prime minister. That turned out to be Fader and another officer.

“It was very overwhelming,” said Fader, who was among a throng of reporters and security guards as he spoke with Netanyahu.

In a short chat in Hebrew — a language Fader is still learning — the prime minister asked him where he was from.

When Netanyahu heard he was from Canada, he mentioned that he was “going there next week.”

Then he asked if Fader wanted a lift home.

“I thought he was joking,” said Fader.

But he wasn’t.

A ride on ‘the Air Force One of Israel’

Back home in B.C., his friend Jon Samuel said he was surprised to see pictures of Fader standing face-to-face with Netanyahu.

“It’s great that he got to meet the prime minister,” Samuel told CTV.ca in a brief telephone interview on Friday.

When the prime minister leaves for Ottawa later this month, Fader will be on what he describes as “the Air Force One of Israel.”

Fader has been told that they will be making a stopover in Paris for one day, which is just another bonus for the soon-to-be 23-year-old who has never before visited the famous city.

He doesn’t have an itinerary yet, but he’s been given the general details.

In the army, you tend to be told things “at the last minute,” Fader said.

It’s the first furlough — or leave — he’ll have taken since joining the Israeli army in December.

So far, he’s completed his four months of basic training and has passed the exam to be a sharpshooter in the Givati Brigade — a part of the Israeli ground forces that specializes in sea-to-land operations.

He’s still training and Fader expects he’ll eventually be put on the front lines, likely on guard duty somewhere along the Gaza Border.

“That’ll be my life,” said Fader, who once considered serving in the Canadian Forces before signing up with the IDF.

It’s a two-year commitment that could lead to more opportunities in the military if he finds it to his liking.

In Israel, soccer is hot, hockey is not

While he’s met a few Canadians serving alongside him in the IDF, Fader has been away from his family for about a year and is admittedly “very, very homesick.”

His sister lives in Edmonton and his parents are still back in B.C., along with some friends he’s looking forward to meeting up with.

“I’m really happy to be going home for a vacation,” said Fader.

He misses watching mixed-martial arts and hockey, which is hard to follow when you are involved in army training and don’t have access to the Internet.

But he’s still managing to keep up with his hometown hockey team.

“I was a little upset that the Canucks lost to the Blackhawks for the second year in a row,” he said.

Samuel said Fader was sent a care package a few months ago, that included some Canucks memorabilia to put up on his wall.

Back when his buddy was in B.C., they used to “watch the games religiously,” Samuel said.

As for Fader’s upcoming flight with Netanyahu, the B.C.-bred hockey fan said he isn’t nervous about making conversation with an ex-commando who has twice been elected as Israel’s leader.

“I’m not the kind of guy that plans these kinds of things,” said Fader. “I’m just going to wing it.”

Meanwhile, I was once on Israeli television shaking hands with then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as he made his way through Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda. I didn’t even get a lousy T-shirt.

7:25AM: CNN report on Israeli sketch comedy show Eretz Nehederet.

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Want to learn how to shoot with top Israeli anti-terror experts? Click here for more details.

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The purpose of such an operation would be to prevent Hamas from rearming following the larger conflict, which is something they seem to have done following Operation Cast Lead, significantly boosting their military capabilities with long-range rockets.

Such an operation would require troops to go house-to-house in Rafah to search for tunnels and to destroy them, increasing the risk of IDF casualties. It would also necessitate the  IDF retaining a presence in southern Rafah to prevent the re-digging of the tunnels.

On Sunday, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yom-Tov Samia, the former head of the Southern Command who continues to function as the current head’s deputy in the reserves, hinted at the possibility that the IDF will conquer the Philadelphi Corridor in the future.

In an interview with Army Radio, Samia said that in a future conflict, Israel would take over “specific territory” in Gaza that would help reduce Hamas’s “oxygen supply.” Contacted later in the day, Samia refused to specify which territory he had referred to.

“We are facing another round in Gaza,” said Samia, who during Cast Lead functioned as the deputy to OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant. “I am very skeptical about the chance that Hamas will suddenly surrender or change its way without first suffering a far more serious blow than it did during Cast Lead.”

The blow, he said, would be “more focused with long-range results including the conquering of territory that Hamas will understand it lost as a result of its provocations. We need to create a situation which reduces its oxygen supply.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:00PM: Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has called US special Mideast envoy George Mitchell’s timetable of reaching peace within two years “unrealistic and might prove counterproductive.”

10:55PM:Israel’s Foreign Ministry has responded to more Turkey Jerkey:

The Foreign Ministry earlier Monday hit back at Erdogan over his remarks, saying: “Israel is careful to respect Turkey and seeks continued proper ties between the countries, but we expect reciprocity,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, calling Erdogan’s remarks an “unbridled tongue-lashing”.

“The State of Israel has the full right to protect its citizens from the missiles and terror of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the Turks are the last who can preach morality to the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces.”

Tell us what you really Armenian mean.

8:14PM: Here in Israel yesterday, US senator Joe Lieberman reacted to US Special Middle East envoy George Mitchell’s comments that the US would withhold aid money from Israel if it was not forthcoming with the palestinians.

7:34PM: Palestinian terrorists today fired yet another Qassam into Israel.

They are either so desperate to kill Jews they’ll risk the inevitable consequences, or are actually wanting Israel to respond.

5:40PM: The award for UNIFIL Soldier Most Likely to Have Accidentally Gotten His Bayonet Lodged Where the Sun Don’t Shine goes to..

4:40PM: Chutzpah of the day:

MK Said Naffaa asked the Knesset on Monday to enforce his immunity as to protect him from a recently submitted indictment accusing him of contacting enemy agents.

Last December, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said he intended to indict Naffaa over an alleged 2007 Syria meeting with Talal Naji, deputy chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and visiting the offices of Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal, although he was not present at the time.

The prosecution accused Naffaa at the time of having “knowingly contacted a foreign agent without a reasonable explanation for doing so.”

The Balad MK sent a letter to Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin on Monday in which he rejected the accusations leveled against him, arguing that the meetings he held in Syria fall under his duties as a member of Knesset.

In his letter, Naffaa indicated the reasons for which his immunity as a MK protects him from the current indictment.

“The offences attributed to me in the indictment are considered actions done for and during my line of duty,” he wrote.

Apparently, his line of duty as a member of the Knesset involves assisting those who are trying to destroy the State.

Now I knew our political system was dysfunctional, but I had no idea it was this bad.

‘Naff(aa) said.

12:26PM: In a poll of 500 Israeli Jews:

• 43% opposed a Swiss-style ban on mosque minarets in the country, with 28% supporting it and 29% undecided.
• 72% of “national-religious” respondents opposed such a ban (55% “strongly opposed”) with 16% in favor
• 53% of “ultra-Orthodox” respondents opposed such a ban with 21% in favor
• 36% of “traditional” respondents opposed such a ban with 31%  in favor
• 42% of “secular” respondents opposed such a ban with 29%  in favor
• 92% of “far-right” National Union party opposed such a ban (65% “strongly opposed”) with 8% in favor
• 64% of “right-wing” Israel Beiteinu party opposed such a ban with 36% in favor
• 54% of “right-wing” Habayit Hayehudi party opposed such a ban with 20% in favor
• 68% of “ultra-Orthodox” United Torah Judaism party opposed such a ban with 22% in favor
• 55% of “ultra-Orthodox” Shas party opposed such a ban with 20% in favor
• 66% of “left-wing” Meretz party opposed such a ban
• 43% of Labor party opposed such a ban with 27% in favor
• 42% of Kadima party opposed such a ban with 31% in favor
• 41% of Likud party opposed such a ban with 41% in favor

And what does this show?

The survey demonstrated that “when it comes to freedom of religion, Israelis are apparently much more tolerant than their Swiss counterparts,” according to Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

“There is a definite correlation between religious observance and tolerance towards Islam… The fact that less than one-third of all Israelis support banning minarets indicates that from the Israeli point of view, there is room for respectful coexistence between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs when it is based on religion and not politics.”

I’d add that the highest opposition to such a ban comes from the national-religious community, the very community maligned as “settlers” and demonized by all, including the very Muslims who would be affected by the ban.

Just saying.

6:08AM: Rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated.

An erroneous report in a popular news site from Portugal this week started a false rumor that former prime minister Ariel Sharon was dead.

Though comatose for the fourth year straight, Sharon is indeed still alive.

The error appeared in IOL Portugal Diario for more than 24 hours, prompting reporters from all over the world – and especially Brazil – to try to corroborate the report.

The article, which has since been taken offline, did not say how Sharon died, reviewing instead highlights from his political and military career.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

“(Hizbullah leader Hassan) Nasrallah is like (former Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon * – they both invaded Beirut,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said during a recent Arab League conference in Cairo on the sectarian violence in Lebanon.

Leaving aside the fact that Israel captured Beirut to drive out the PLO (which had been launching terrorist attacks from Lebanon) while Hizbullah’s agenda is very different, Al-Faisal’s statement once again shows the Arab fixation with Israel, even when Israel is not involved.

By the way, in case you were wondering:

The Arab League eventually decided that it would try to mediate between the rival factions in Lebanon but did not condemn Hizbullah.

* There is no similarity between Nasrallah and Sharon, although I really wish there was in one respect.