And Syrian dorktator Bashar Assad also says he supports negotiations.

With a little bit of terrorism on the side.

“The essence of peace is not just negotiations but rather, resistance as well,” state-run SANA news agency quoted Assad as saying.

Speaking at a conference of Arab political parties in Damascus, Assad said that by supporting “resistance” he also supports the peace process.

Armed fighting and peace talks are parts of the same “axis” to recover legitimate Palestinian rights, the Syrian leader said.

Sounds like someone we should deal with!

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

7:24PM: Photo of the day

Omm Ahmed, right, a woman militant in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), poses for a portrait in a house of a fellow fighter, in the Gaza Strip, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009. Founded in 1969 the DFLP is a Palestinian Marxist-Leninist, secular political and military organization. Approximately 40 women militants for the DFLP started training 6 months ago as a response to Israel’s January offensive. They range in age from 17 to 53 and many are married with children. (AP Photo/ Tara Todras-Whitehill)

The caption writer seems to have omitted to mention the elephant in the room, which is actually more like a child.

Then again, as we saw a few days ago, Ms Todras-Whitehill has a tendency to leave out relevant details.

4:52PM: Here’s the interesting story of an Israeli-Russian boxer out to kick butt.

And become a Rabbi.

Bonus: His surname is Foreman.

1:20PM: It is not every day that I agree with Shimon Peres about something. But today I do.

Richard Goldstone, who authored the United Nations report accusing Israel of perpetrating war crimes in its Gaza offensive earlier the year, is a man devoid of any real sense of justice and is intent on harming Israel, President Shimon Peres told Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during their meeting in Brasilia on Wednesday.

“Goldstone is a small man, devoid of any sense of justice, a technocrat with no real understanding of jurisprudence,” Peres told his Brazilian counterpart, adding that the South African jurist “was on a one-sided mission to hurt Israel.”

Referring to Goldstone’s recommendation to investigate possible war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, Peres said, “If anyone should be investigated, it should be him.”

5:46AM: University lectures on trains! Is there anything those crafty Jews haven’t thought of?

12:05AM: Still on the subject of Syria, look who’s a fan.

Academy Award-winning actress Angelina Jolie is planning to adopt a child from Syria, OK! magazine reported Wednesday.

The actress, who was recently in Syria with partner Brad Pitt to visit Iraqi refugees, has reportedly started the adoption process to bring home a baby girl.

—-

“It is clear that the Syrian people, no matter the challenges or difficulties they may face, have always shown generous hospitality to people in need,” the magazine quoted Jolie as telling local news agency ChamPress during her October trip.

I agree that Syria has shown generous hospitality to people in need, if by “people in need” Jolie means terrorist organizations.

(I wonder if this news is going to ruin the recent reconciliation with her father).

Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari responded by accusing Israel of committing “an act of piracy on the high seas,” and dismissed the charges as  “the usual outrageous concoction of lies.”

The same day, President Shimon Peres urged Syrian President Assad to engage in “direct and immediate negotiations, without mediators, without conditions, without postponements.”

I dunno. It’s almost like Peres is from another planet.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)?

5:50PM: Photo of the day:

A Palestinian holds up a banner depicting the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during a rally marking the anniversary of Arafat’s death in the West Bank city of Ramallah November 11, 2009. The Fatah movement of Abbas accused Gaza’s Islamist Hamas rulers of detaining dozens of its members on Tuesday to stop them marking the 5th anniversary of the death of Arafat. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman (WEST BANK POLITICS ANNIVERSARY IMAGES OF THE DAY)

Is it just me, or does it look like Arafat was wearing a condom on his head?

5:22PM: PA President Mahmoud Abbas is celebrating the fact his people have been engaged in terrorism for longer than anyone else.

“The Palestinian people and the Palestinian leadership will not lose hope and won’t allow despair to enter into our souls,” he said. “Our revolution is the most difficult and the longest revolution in history, and is perhaps the last revolution in the world.”

1:58PM: You remember that media blackout after yesterday’s Netanyahu-Obama meeting? Seems as though it may have been due to Washington disappointment with Bibi.

The White House expressed disappointment in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to Washington, with officials saying that they had hoped that the prime minister would present a concrete plan to scale back Israeli construction in West Bank settlements, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Speaking at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington on Monday, Netanyahu urged the Palestinians to resume peace talks with Israel, but failed to offer any new commitment regarding the settlements, which the Palestinians have demanded be halted as a precondition for talks, nor did he present any new terms for the talks.

“We had an idea that he might bring something out to push the process forward,” one U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal. “But he’s kept it in his pocket.”

There’s an obvious (Bill) Clinton joke here, but I am going to resist temptation. [add additional obvious Bill Clinton joke here]

6:15AM: Former Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs and three- time Defence Minister, Prof. Moshe Arens, speaking on the topic of the War on Terror and the Goldstone Report.

Relations between Israel and the United States are in crisis. This is the conclusion that stems from the difficulty in arranging a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama.

The White House wanted Netanyahu to sweat before being granted an audience with the president, and wanted everyone to see him perspire.

The delays in finding a time to meet, and pushing it to a late hour – after the news programs on Israeli television – make Netanyahu look as if Obama threw him a bone. In such circumstances, it is no longer important what will be said at the meeting, and the extent to which there will be an attempt to present it as an achievement. The prime minister of Israel was humiliated before all.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:52PM: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was heckled by some schmekels during his address to the 2009 General Assembly of the The Jewish Federations of North America in Washington.

Props to Bibi for remaining composed and coming back with a zinger.

8:08PM: International “activists” have helped palestinians remove part of the security barrier for the second time in a week, making it easier for terrorists to enter Israel.

5:06PM: Syrian Dorktator Bashar Assad has clearly expressed his support for terrorism.

Syrian President Bashar Assad  warned on Monday that if the Golan Heights are not returned peacefully – Syria will turn to resistance. Speaking at an economic forum of the Organization of Islamic Conference in Istanbul, Assad said, “The failure of negotiations towards the full restoration of rights automatically means resistance is the alternative solution.”

According to Assad, “Resisting the occupation is a national duty. It is our legitimate and moral obligation to support it, and it is an honor that we take pride in. This does not contradict the constant desire to achieve a just and inclusive peace on the basis of the restoration of the occupied lands, starting with the occupied Syrian Golan.”

He has also repeated an old blood libel against Israel.

He also slammed Israel for the situation at the Temple Mount  in Jerusalem: “We felt this danger 40 years ago, when the Israelis tried to set fire to the al-Aqsa Mosque.

He is referring to the al-Aqsa Mosque fire in 1969, which was started by an (insane) Australian Christian by the name of Dennis Michael Rohan. In fact, it was Israeli firemen who worked hard to extinguish the fire, while being attacked by Muslim onlookers.

2:04PM: Disturbing quote of the day:

“At the beginning I was attracted to the leader of the revolution, then to the courage and masculinity and intelligence, and then also to the romance there was in him”

- Suha Arafat speaking about her former husband Yasser

5:42AM: Palestinians fired a Qassam into Israel just before midnight.

No injuries, no damage…and no response.

The Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead will not go away even if Israel launches an independent inquiry into the campaign, UN Ambassador Gabriela Shalev said Wednesday.

“There are no legal questions here – and we shouldn’t be deluding ourselves that the report will disappear if we launch a probe,” Shalev said during a discussion held at the Israel Democracy Institute. “We are seeing a murky wave against the State of Israel the likes of which has not been seen in many years.”

“It reached the point of de-legitimizing our existence as an independent state,” she said.

“We are doing a poor job of explaining our position,” Shalev added. “What we have here is an indictment against Israel, against freedom of expression, against the legal establishment, and against the army.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

6:02PM: A state memorial ceremony was held today marking 14 years since the assassination of formerPrime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Besides the obvious human tragedy, Yitzhak Rabin’s murder led to others co-opting his name to advance their own agendas. For instance, those who advocate a palestinian state like to refer back to Rabin and the Oslo process, yet conveniently leave out Rabin’s own views on the subject.

From his speech on the ratification of the Israeli- Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip:

We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says similar things and he is derided as an extremist.

5:26PM: There is nothing humorous about this Daily Show interview with palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti and Jewish anti-Israel activist Anna Baltzer.

Stewart does not challenge them on any of the blatant lies, including the corker from Barghouti that “90% of the palestinian struggle has been non-violent. Today, it’s maybe 99;5% non-violent.” (05:55), although even Stewart’s B.S detectors activate when Baltzer claims that “Jews lived better within the Arab world than virtually anywhere within the Western world” (05:45).

9:48AM: Lebanon has sprung into action following the Katushya attack on Israel a few days ago, already identifying the culprits.

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman says Israel is behind the Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon on Tuesday. In an interview to Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar, the president did not conceal his concern over the recent incident.

Suleiman said the rocket “is an excuse for Israel to keep violating Lebanon’s sovereignty and immediately use it to continue its intelligence activity in Lebanon due to Hezbollah’s presence.”

The president explained that the rocket attack from Lebanon coincides with Israel’s interested and said the shooter was an Israeli agent. “Therefore, I do not rule out the possibility that Israel is the one behind the Katyusha attack,” he said.

8:45AM: Ha’aretz headline:

White House slams Obama’s poor standing among Israelis

The problem is, there is no indication of any such “slamming” in the report itself, which does mention this though:

Obama’s advisers are worried about his lack of popularity and the expressed feeling that he is hostile to Israel. They believe this seriously harms his ability to advance the peace process with the Palestinians. Obama’s advisers see this as the reason why Israelis view his diplomatic initiatives on both Iran and the Palestinians so negatively.

Recent weeks have seen a number of meetings on the matter in the White House, and one of the ideas under discussion is an Obama visit to Israel. It was decided at this stage to wait and send Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Jerusalem; she is to arrive Saturday night.

I don’t know if that will work either. After all, if the below Jerusalem Post picture and caption is anything to go by, Israelis do not think much of her either.

8:35AM: As if we didn’t have enough problems.

The reliability of a breathalyzer device widely used by Israeli police has been called into question: A new study found the device is vulnerable to external conditions, and prone to registering innocuous substances as alcohol.

The defense team for a suspect charged with driving under the influence hired an expert to test the breathalyzer, manufactured by the German firm Draeger and widely used by the Israel Police.

The expert – Dr. Igal Bar-Ilan, head of the Analytical Chemistry Department at the research institute MIGAL in Kiryat Shmona, and a lecturer at the city’s Tel-Hai Academic College – found that external conditions such as temperature, humidity, and the length and speed of inhalation can affect reported BAC levels, making the driver seem intoxicated when he is not.

Bar-Ilan also found that the device is likely to incorrectly interpret compounds like acetone and acetic acid as alcoholic substances.

The study was conducted under police supervision and in cooperation with Draeger.

The device reported alcohol in Tirosh brand grape juice and the energy drink XL, the experiment found. When small amounts of alcohol were mixed with these beverages, the device reported the quantity was larger than it actually was.

Eran Ben-Ami, the attorney who initiated the study, said thousands of Israeli motorists may have been wrongly convicted of driving under the influence – an offense for which drivers may lose their licenses for two years.

5:50AM: The UN General Assembly announced it will meet next week (November 4) to consider the Goldstone Report.

12:45AM: While Syrian Dorktator Bashar Assad’s statement that Syria is ready to continue peace talks with Israel has been widely reported, not many news outlets are reporting claims by a Kuwaiti news site that an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with the Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister in New York (auto-translation):

Arab normalization: Syrian official adviser had met with Netanyahu

New York – Palestine Media – newspaper (Gazette) Kuwait on its website, quoting informed sources in Jerusalem said the Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad recently met in New York Yitzhak Molkho adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

She explained that the meeting was held in the Helmsley Hotel in New York under the auspices of the rich American of Jewish origin Ron Lauder, known for his close ties with Damascus.

Kuwaiti newspaper quoted the sources mentioned as saying that the meeting was cordial and took two hours, during which the parties talked about the circumstances and climates conducive to the resumption of negotiations between Israel and Syria under the auspices of an American, referring to the Israeli side has confirmed his intention to hold talks without conditions. These sources added that Molkho Mekdad reported that Netanyahu is ready to make peace.

The same sources confirmed occurrence of other events at different levels between the Syrian and Israeli officials with the knowledge of authorities on both sides.

Dorktator Assad, Damascus, Golan Heights, musical knickers

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Answer: The Golan Heights. The rest belong to Syria.

Regarding those musical knickers..

Just off the crowded central market in Old Damascus, a sales assistant called Mahmoud is giving me my first introduction into an unusual Syrian speciality – musical knickers.

The garments come in many different shapes and colours, and play little tunes – or other extraneous noises like telephone ringtones – all made by small electronic devices hidden in the lining.

Singing underwear isn’t the only item on sale at the “Fatin Shop for Ladies Indoor Clothing”, where Mahmoud is proudly showing off his product lines.

He’s got knickers with flashing fairy lights, others that glow in the dark, a bra-and-knickers set shaped like manicured women’s hands enveloping the wearer’s crotch and breasts.

In a slightly higher price range, he’s got remote-controlled bras and knickers, designed to spring open and fall to the floor with a clap of the hands or a press of a button.

Lingerie that opens up and falls to the ground when triggered by loud noises? It certainly puts this into perspective. And I’m also thinking that the Syrian men should be thanking us for incidents like this.

Update: Separated at birth?

Sarkozy: “Please don’t eat me.”

“He he he. See what happens when I pull my finger?”

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.