Thanks to AFP/Getty Images, we can see one of the hecklers.

Security removes a protestor (C) who shouted out while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was speaking May 23, 2011 to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference 2011 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

Shame on you, Ehud Olmert!

The Palestinian Authority complained to Israel recently that Shin Bet officers were in contact with high-level Hamas members around Jenin, senior Palestinian sources told Haaretz.

The Palestinian sources said that 10 days ago a number of low ranking Shin Bet officers met with senior figures of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Among the Hamas figures was the former Hamas Prisoner Affairs minister, Wusfi Kabha, a Jenin resident; Fadil Busnak a lawyer representing mostly Hamas men, who also resides in Jenin; and A’san Zreydi, an important Hamas figure in the area and a former prisoner. Also at one of the meetings was Adnan Hader, a member of Islamic Jihad from the village of Arabe.

None of the four are considered to be involved in armed resistance and are all recognized as political figures.

According to the Palestinian sources, the Shin Bet officers visited the four in their homes late at night, were permitted to enter and then explained that they did not intend to arrest the four, but to talk “over a cup of coffee.”

Unless the Shin Bet slipped something into their coffee, I can’t see the real benefit of such a meeting.

Do you think it went something like this?

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:20PM: Pamela Anderson performs on Israel’s version of Dancing With The Stars.

7:34PM: Good for you, Mr Prime Minister:

“Jerusalem isn’t a settlement – Jerusalem is the capital of Israel,” the statement by the Prime Minister’s Office read. “Israel has never put any sort of limits on construction in Jerusalem, where some 800,000 people reside, and didn’t do so during the 10-month settlement freeze in the West Bank either.”

5:30PM: Funny Israeli skit on organ donation (note: while it is in Hebrew, non-Hebrew speakers will still understand it)

5:18PM: Seemed like a good idea at the time?

All-expenses-paid trip to Israel   – mistress and nephew included. The miners rescued from the depths of a Chilean mine say they will give an affirmative response to Israel’s invitation to vacation in the country, on the condition that their families can join them.

Two weeks ago, Israel invited the 33 miners who were trapped in a Chilean mine for 69 days to visit Israel over the Christmas holiday.

Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov, who initiated the invitation, wanted to bring the miners and their significant others to Israel for “a spiritual journey in the holy land over the Christmas holiday, during which they would say prayers of thanksgiving for their safe rescue”.

The Tourism Ministry offered them a fully-funded five to seven day stay which would include flights, accommodation and tours of the Christian holy sites.

The initiation was presented by Israel’s ambassador to Chile David Dadon to the governor of the Atacama region, where the miners were rescued.

Last weekend, the governor told the Israeli ambassador that the miners would be happy to come to Israel and sent him a full list of the miners and their family members.

However, the list wasn’t limited to the miners and their partners: It also included a long list of additional names. The list included 33 miners, 31 partners, two mothers of two single miners, the miners’ 33 children, one grandchild, one nephew and one partner’s daughter.

And if that wasn’t enough, one miner asked to bring both his wife and his mistress.

5:16PM: He’s still getting his pension?

5:15PM: In his keynote address to the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly in New Orleans, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was heckled by a shmekel.

This is not the first time. I like Netanyahu’s retort from last year.

4:58PM: US President Obama:

“This kind of activity [Israel's plan to construct 1,300 new homes in East Jerusalem] is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations.”

Aussie Dave:

“President Obama is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations.”

11:55AM: Photo of the day: Courtesy of the IDF Spokesperson…

Home Front Command Search and Rescue Drill

The combat soldiers of the Home Front Command’s Search and Rescue Unit train for a possible combat scenario in central Israel. This unit is comprised of both male and female combat soldiers.

10:38AM: It’s official: Former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri was killed for impersonating John Kerry.

[click on image to enlarge]

9:40AM: Here’s video of Stephen Harper’s speech (hat tip: David).

9:38AM: The PA has arrested a blogger for the crime of speaking out against Islam.

Residents of a conservative northern West Bank city were surprised when security forces detained a controversial blogger whose postings on Facebook had infuriated Muslims.

A high-ranking source in the general Palestinian intelligence services told Ma’an that the detainee, who was not identified, was arrested in Qalqiliya. He refused to give specific details and would not identify the detainee. However, Ma’an has learned from other security sources that the man “who claimed divinity” is a 25-year-old university student.

The sources say security services have pursued the man for more than two months until they finally caught him at an internet café in Qalqiliya while updating his Facebook profile on which he claimed he was God and that he was angry with his subjects.

Conservative Muslims had been angrily following the blogger’s postings, many of them altered verses from the Koran, the Muslim holy book, as well as caricatures of the prophet Muhammad that had been published in Danish newspapers. Hundreds of Facebook groups had asked that the man’s account be deleted. After Facebook closed his group, the young man started a blog, Enlightenment of Reason.

Although he had not been identified by the PA, supporters of the blogger have indicated that he is 26 years old. He has identified himself as Waleed Al-Husseini and, in an August blog post, defended his beliefs.

“Muslims often ask me why I left Islam,” he wrote. “What strikes me is that Muslims can’t seem to understand that renouncing Islam is a choice offered to everyone and that anyone has the right to do so. They believe anyone who leaves Islam is an agent or a spy for a Western State, namely the Jewish State, and that they get paid bundles of money by the governments of these countries and their secret services. They actually don’t get that people are free to think and believe in whatever suits them.”

He added: “I would like to emphasize that by writing this article, I did not mean to imply that Christianity or Judaism were better than Islam, and the reader should not fool himself into thinking that I only reject Islam among religions, all of which are to me a bunch of mind-blowing legends and a pile of nonsense that compete with each other in terms of stupidity.”

Although secular political beliefs are not uncommon in the occupied Palestinian territories, the expression of views seen as hostile to the dominant religion is viewed by many as incitement rather than free speech.

The positions taken by the blogger were so out of the mainstream that many in Qalqiliya were surprised to learn that he was Palestinian. Even members of his family said the student, who worked as a barber, ought be prosecuted and sentenced, although it was not clear if he had been charged with a crime. It was also not clear if he had a lawyer.

The blogger has received some support online since his arrest.

A Facebook group, “In Solidarity With Waleed Al-Husseini,” responded, “Criticizing religions is pretty much allowed in countries with Muslim majority; people publically criticize Christianity and Judaism in mosques, published books, national and pan-Arab TV stations, and even in public schools. It’s criticizing of Islam that is only not allowed.”

The post added: “Allowing such action is not only double standard, but a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also could make a dangerous precedent that may open the door for further persecution, than already is, for irreligious and other religious minorities in societies with major Muslim population.”

9:18AM: You have to hand it to Pamela Anderson. She’s an optimist.

While in Israel, Anderson also said she plans to use her “powers of seduction” on ultra-Orthodox Jewish lawmakers to get them to ban fur.

8:52AM: G-d bless Stephen Harper.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday delivered a pro-Israel  speech at a parliamentary conference which dealt with ways to fight anti-Semitism. Harper implied that his country did not secure a seat at the United Nations Security Council due to its failure to cooperate with an anti-Israel policy.

The Canadian prime minister stressed that while there is room for fair criticism against the Israeli government, Canada is obligated to come to the Jewish state’s defense when it is attacked by others.

“And like any free country Israel subjects itself to such criticism, healthy, necessary, democratic debate,” he said. “But when Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand.”

Harper said Canada must oppose demonization, double standards and de-legitimization.

“Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows us, and the ideology of the anti-Israel mob tell us all too well, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are in the longer term a threat to all of us,” he said.

“Whether it is at the United Nations or any other international forum, the easiest thing to do is simply to just get along and go along with this anti-Israel rhetoric, to pretend it is just about being even-handed, and to excuse oneself with the label of honest broker,” Harper added.

The Canadian prime minister suggested that this was the reason his country lost the recent vote for a temporary Security Council seat, saying “I have the bruises to show for it.”

Harper stated in his speech that “as long as I am prime minister… Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost.”

In his speech, the Canadian prime minister warned that anti-Semitism was on the rise worldwide, including in universities in his own country.

He said the “evolving phenomenon” of anti-Semitism targets Jews by portraying Israel as “the source of injustice and conflict in the world, and uses perversely the language of human rights to do so.”

“We must be relentless in exposing this new anti-Semitism for what it is,” Harper concluded.

I’d say that under Stephen Harper, Israel has no better friend in the world than Canada.

6:20AM: Preview for a new Turkish film on Israel’s boarding of the flotilla, which has us talking turkey..and in Turkish.

Can’t say I’m surprised they painted us as evil killers. It’s what they do.

Meanwhile, I am thinking of developing a film about a man and a horse.

6:10AM: In a soon-to-be-released (as in today) memoir, former US President George W. Bush reveals much about his policies regarding Israel, not to mention the “leadership” of former Israeli PM Ehud “Odie” Olmert.

Former US president George W. Bush indicates that both Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas were willing to publicly back Olmert’s proposed peace agreement before Olmert’s ouster as prime minister ruined the deal, according to a memoir to be released on Tuesday.

Bush also excoriates the US intelligence agencies that famously concluded in late 2007 that Iran had halted production of a nuclear weapon, denying him any possible military option, and notes that he rejected an appeal by Olmert earlier in the year to bomb a Syrian nuclear facility.

“We devised a process to turn [Olmert’s] private offer into a public agreement,” Bush writes of the secret peace deal worked out between the then-prime minister of Israel and Palestinian Authority president. “Olmert would travel to Washington and deposit his proposal with me. Abbas would announce that the plan was in line with Palestinian interests. I would call the leaders together to finalize the deal.”

That agreement was to include handing over the “vast majority” of the West Bank to the Palestinians, building a tunnel to connect it to the Gaza Strip, allowing a “limited number” of Palestinian refugees into Israel, establishing Jerusalem as a joint capital and entrusting control of the holy sites to “a panel of nonpolitical elders.”

But then Olmert was forced to resign his premiership because of corruption allegations, and Abbas “didn’t want to make an agreement with a prime minister on his way out of office,” Bush relates.

The 497 pages of Decision Points detail the difficult choices Bush made over the course of his two-term presidency, including on Iraq, Afghanistan and the economic crisis. While he occasionally expresses compunction, as when he acknowledges, “I regret that I ended my presidency with the Iranian issue unresolved,” he mostly justifies the decisions he made and draws positive lessons even from adverse outcomes.

Even though the peace deal between Olmert and Abbas was never sealed and has been followed by many more months of stalemate, Bush says that at the same time as he felt disappointment that an agreement hadn’t been reached, “I was pleased with the progress we had made.”

When it comes to his push to include Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the US, in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections of 2005 – which the Islamist movement won – Bush remains resolute.

“America could not be in the position of endorsing elections only when we liked the projected outcome,” he explains, adding that the vote “forced a decision in Hamas” about whether it would govern or revert to violence.

Following Hamas’s coup in Gaza in 2007, Bush notes his support for Israel’s blockade excluding only the most basic humanitarian needs from Gaza so Palestinians there “would see a vivid contrast between their living conditions under Hamas and those under the democratic leader, Abbas.”

Bush’s tone is less sanguine when it comes to Iran and the first presidential election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with his professed messianism combined with verbal attacks on Israel and the Holocaust. “I started to worry we were dealing with more than just a dangerous leader. This guy could be nuts.”

Amid his rising conviction that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon, Bush settles on a policy of sanctions and multilateral diplomacy while stressing, “Military action would always be on the table, but it would be my last resort.”

But he expresses outrage at learning that his own intelligence agencies had undercut that option.

He describes the “eye-popping declaration” on the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate judging with “high confidence” that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program.

“Israel and our Arab allies found themselves in a rare moment of unity. Both were deeply concerned about Iran and furious with the United States over the NIE,” he says of the report’s immediate backlash.

Bush told King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia soon afterward, “The NIE was produced independently by our intelligence community. I’m as angry about it as you are.”

Bush speculates that the intelligence agencies were trying to avoid the mistakes made in Iraq – when they had been over-zealous in their intelligence conclusions – but he concludes, “whatever the explanation, the NIE had a big impact – and not a good one.”

Bush writes positively about the importance of the US relationship with Israel and the Jewish state’s justified concerns over its security, relating how a helicopter ride he took with Ariel Sharon, “a bull of a man,” in 1998 while he was governor of Texas made him “convinced that we had a responsibility to keep the relationship strong.”

At one point his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, even referred to him as the first “Jewish president” after his landmark speech in 2002 calling for a democratic Palestinian state run by a new leadership, i.e. not by then-president Yasser Arafat.

“Shortly after the speech, Mother called,” Bush relates. “‘How’s the first Jewish president doing?’ she asked. I had a funny feeling she disagreed with my policy. That meant Dad [former president George H.W. Bush] probably did as well.” Even so, Bush “laughed off the wisecrack,” though he knew he was in for criticism for taking a position his vice president, secretary of defense and secretary of state opposed.

Still, Bush doesn’t shy away from pointing to disagreements he had with Israel during his tenure, including criticism of Olmert’s handling of the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Bush notes that he was supportive of Olmert going after Hizbullah following its cross-border attack on IDF soldiers.

He also held the international community at bay to give time for Israel to badly damage the terrorist group and its backers in Damascus and Teheran.

“Unfortunately they mishandled their opportunity,” he says, pointing to Israel bombing campaigns “of questionable military value,” including of sites in northern Lebanon.

Bush also castigates Olmert for declaring that he wouldn’t attack Syria, a major Hizbullah patron.

“Removing the threat of retaliation let Syria off the hook and emboldened them to continue their support for Hizbullah,” he chides. Eventually, as more of the world shifted against Israel, Bush lifted his opposition to a UN-brokered cease-fire, to avoid alienating the international community he wanted to join him in isolating Syria and Iran.

His esteem for Israel’s military capabilities was only restored after, he states, Olmert authorized a pinpoint operation on a nuclear site Syria was constructing in 2007. Bush describes how Olmert urged the US to take out the target, but Bush wanted to use diplomacy instead to pressure Syria.

Once the attack was completed, Bush urged Olmert to make it public to use it against Damascus, but Olmert wanted to keep it quiet so as not to provoke a Syrian backlash.

“This was his operation, and I felt an obligation to respect his wishes. I kept quiet, even though I felt we were missing an opportunity,” Bush writes.

“The bombing demonstrated Israel’s willingness to act alone. Prime minister Olmert hadn’t asked for a green light and I hadn’t given one. He had done what he believed was necessary to protect Israel,” Bush writes.

In an attempt to reverse the trend of boycotts against Israel, 38 Nobel peace prize laureates have signed a declaration condemning international attempts to divest from, sanction or boycott Israeli academic institutions and research centers, according to a World Jewish Congress (WJC) report on Tuesday.

Under the auspices of an initiative by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) the Nobel prize winners gave special attention to the continued threat of a boycott by South Africa’s University of Johannesburg of Ben-Gurion University in Israel and student divestment efforts in the University of California system.

The WJC report contained a statement by the Nobel prize laureates which read “Academic and cultural boycotts, divestments and sanctions in the academy are antithetical to principles of academic and scientific freedom, antithetical to principles of freedom of expression and inquiry, and may well constitute discrimination by virtue of national origin. Instead of fostering peace, [they] are likely to be counterproductive to the dynamics of reconciliation that lead to peace.”

“We, the undersigned Nobel Laureates, appeal to students, faculty colleagues and university officials to defeat and denounce calls and campaigns for boycotting, divestment and sanctions against Israeli academics, academic institutions and university-based centers and institutes for training and research, affiliated with Israel,” the statement continued.

The statement went on to say that “we, and many like us, have dedicated ourselves to improving the human condition by doing the often difficult and elusive work to understand complex and seemingly unsolvable phenomena. We believe that the university should serve as an open, tolerant and respectful, cooperative and collaborative community engaged in practices of resolving complex problems,” the WJC report said.

SPME is a grassroots network of more than 60,000 faculty and scholars on 4,000 campuses.

The initiative works towards creating peace in peace in the Middle East, and also strives towards a world in which Israel can have secure borders and peace agreements with all its neighbors.

This recent statement was coordinated by Nobel Prize laureates Steven Weinberg, University of Texas, Austin and Roger Kornberg, Stanford University.

I assume the 38 does not include Jimmy Carter.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

7:45PM: Israel has admitted to killing the Army of Islam terrorist.

And he was obviously no boy scout.

Shin Bet sources said Nimnim was involved in planning attacks on Israeli and American targets across the Egyptian border in the Sinai peninsula.

4:32PM: Well, I guess that’s one way to break up a fight.

4:20PM: Wounded US Army veterans are currently visiting Israel, thanks to a special program.

Wounded U.S. Army veterans visiting Israel on a bike riding tour have discovered that American mainstream media give a false picture of Israel.

An IDF reporter accompanied the veterans of the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) during their tour, co-sponsored by Friends of the IDF. The tour began north of Tel Aviv two weeks ago and continued thorough Tiberias in the north and Nahariya on the northwestern Mediterranean coast.

In between, the veterans who suffered injuries in battles in Iraq and Afghanistan toured Jerusalem.

Standing on a rooftop overlooking the Temple Mount, the veterans tried to soak up the beauty of the Holy Land. “Back in the States, when we see Israel on the news, for example, it seems like a terror stricken country filled with war,” said a veteran nicknamed Big Joe. “But when we arrived here, we stood in front of a beautiful country. And it seems like IDF soldiers perform their duty with passion, even though they are obligated to serve. And I think that’s what turns them into better citizens.”

The veterans left the capital to continue their bike tour through the IDF tank museum at Latrun, west of Jerusalem, and to Masada, overlooking the Dead Sea. They also dined with U.S. ambassador to Israel James Cunningham and visited the IDF induction center to see how new soldiers are processed.

Friends of the IDF member Liron said that the bicycling project began in the United States at the initiative of a non-Jewish soldier who fell in love with Israel after a visit. “He felt the need to bring Israeli soldiers to the United States to ride with American soldiers,” Liron added. “He’s done so every July for the last four years when WWP holds a bike tour “in New York.

“The project developer found it very important to bring American vets to Israel,” said Bob Grant, volunteer from Florida about the joint trip of U.S. Army and IDF veterans. This year is the first time the WWP has brought the veterans to Israel for a bicycling tour.

Sgt. Juan Arredondo, who lost his hand in a bloody attack in Iraq, said, “The U.S. army and the IDF have a lot of things in common such as our similar fighting situations – urban warfare. However, we go far from home to protect America, but here you are fighting for your own right to live. Your fights take place in your own backyards.”

WWP executive director Steve Nardizzi remarked, “We are truly honored and moved to see our American heroes riding alongside veterans of another nation’s armed forces and welcomed so warmly in Israel.”

4:15PM: An Army of Islam terrorist is marinating the soil, thanks either to an IAF strike or premature explodation.

1:50PM: Lauren Booth explains her conversion to Islam. Again.

With bonus Israellycool snark.

1:15PM: Will someone please return this man’s saxaphone to him..to where the sun don’t shine?

12:22PM: Anti-Israel “activist” and recent-convert-to-Islam Lauren Booth has threatened to sue al Arabya for treating her conversion in a sarcastic way.

Lauren Booth, the former British Prime Minister’s sister in law, has expressed her dissatisfaction with al Arabya for the sarcastic way it reported her conversion to Islam.

“Is this the way you are welcomed by the Arab station Binsanp converted to Islam just,” said Booth, adding that she would contact her lawyer to take legal action against the channel which described her conversion as “sarcastic.”

12:12PM: Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary-general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, has accused Israel of intervening in the American mid-term elections in a bid to disrupt the Middle East peace process, as evidenced by the Republicans’ strong showing.

He went on to slam the Israeli government, noting that “these results prove that Israel played a role in these elections and cooperated with US elements in order to use the results to thwart the negotiations. More than anything, this testifies to the Israeli government’s intentions in regards to the peace process.”

Yet at the same time contradicted himself:

According to the senior Palestinian officials, the US election results – in which the Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives – should not make much of a different for the Palestinians.

“This is an event with political achievements, but we are working with the American administration and the elections should not have an effect,” Abed Robbo said.

12:00PM: Former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Reza Kahlili has said Iran would not hesitate to use nuclear bombs against Israel.

“[Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government] will use the nuclear bomb against Israel, they will use it against Persian Gulf countries, and they will use it against Europe to bring about that last hadith (Islamic commentaries on sayings and activities of Mohammed and his companions) that calls for total chaos, lawlessness, and havoc in the world, which creates the circumstance for Imam Mahdi (the Islamic messianic figure) to appear.”

9:40AM: Another “first” for Israel.

I wonder what groups like QUIT and Queers Against Israeli Apartheid have to say about it.

9:20AM: UNIFIL commander Alain Pellegrini – whose job requirements should include not taking sides – has complained about the US and Israel to a Lebanese newspaper.

United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) commander Alain Pellegrini uncovered US attempt to penetrate the leadership of UNIFIL during July 2006 war on Lebanon, in order to convert the force into a bridgehead for the intervention of international forces from NATO or the EU, without waiting until the ceasefire.

In a telephone interview with As-Safir newspaper on Tuesday, Pellegrini said “in case of launching a joint operation, I was offered to join American officers. The US had deployed (off the coast of Lebanon) the twenty-fourth marine intervention Unit which is capable to intervene in my operational area and is ready to provide me with reinforcements in case of launching any operation.”

The U.S. offer “to assist UNIFIL”, during the July war, came after meetings in Rome, which considered the possibility of sending international forces, under the flags of the United Nations.

Pellegrini continues his story about the United States, which was likely to militarily intervene in the July war, via NATO, after Israel stumbled in attacking Hezbollah.

“The Western countries, except France, in their consultations in New York, agreed to blame UNIFIL for ineffectiveness and try, in particular, to bring other forces (a multinational force) without the blue berets, sent by the NATO or the European Union, which former US President George Bush would speedily conjoin, without waiting for the ceasefire ,” the General revealed.

Pellegrini also speaks about the Israeli spying and ability to infiltrate the UNIFIL reports about Hezbollah. “We know many of Hezbollah positions, our leadership in New York are aware of their evolution of deployment, so everything is transparent and Israeli agents can get reports from Naqoura,” the UNIFIL commander said.

He proved his saying by revealing that “every time I send my semi-annual report to the UNIFIL, attached by details for the leadership of United Nations forces alone, and despite the fact that the report is encrypted, I immediately receive after each report to New York, a letter from the Israeli Army, containing suggestions for writing the report, hoping to amend it!!”

“The information goes to the Israelis either by tapping or at the time it reaches the United Nations in New York,” the General uncovered.

Pellegrini also unveiled that Israel had killed four UNIFIL officers monitoring the truce in Khiyam plain during the July war.

On Thursday, the French general will release his book “Summer of Fire in Lebanon” in which he talks about the July war as he witnessed it from ‘inside’ in Francophone Book Fair in Beirut.

9:15AM: From the Right Message, Wrong Messenger department:

Olmert blamed Western nations for lack of cooperation against terrorism. “The origin of terrorism is within Islam,” he said. “To fight terrorism, we need a judicial resolution that allows for the fight.”

“Governments must get over the political convenience and adjust themselves to reality,” he said. “Perhaps it would have been possible to prevent the attack on the Twin Towers if they would have looked into the places where it wasn’t politically comfortable to look. Those terrorists were educated in the US. We must decide what we want.”

6:02AM: You just can’t make this stuff up.

Palestinian Authority Minister of Culture Siham Barghouthi said Tuesday that his ministry was investigating Israel’s theft of Palestinian heritage.

Palestinian culture must be preserved by organizing exhibitions and festivals to show that heritage claimed by Israel is actually Palestinian, Bargouthi said in an interview with Ma’an Radio.

A blue version of the keffiyeh, a scarf and a Palestinian national symbol, could be found in markets with a Star of David used instead of the traditional pattern, the minister noted.

Maha Saqa, director of the Heritage Conservation Center in Bethlehem, told Ma’an Radio that a country is an accumulation of its culture, and the theft of heritage should be examined. Israel had stolen Palestine’s national food, clothes and the keffiyeh, she said, adding that the modified keffiyeh, bearing the Star of David, was used in European football stadiums.

5:58AM: It looks like we may get the photo opportunity of the year after all.

"Sorry, but this is as covered up as I get"

The Knesset Education, Culture, and Sports Committee, including Shas  and United Torah Judaism  representatives, are in for a surprise: Pamela Anderson is expected to join their discussion table.

Anderson, a Canadian-American actress and advocate for animal rights, is expected to arrive in Israel to take part in a discussion intended to soften the religious parties’ objection to the fur bill presented by Knesset Member Ronit Tirosh (Kadima). The bill calls for a ban on fur trade in Israel.

Anderson was approached by representatives of the International Anti-Fur Coalition, led by Jane Halevi. The meeting has yet to be set due to the actress’s busy schedule.

“We don’t know her, but if she wants to meet I hope she know that we observe Negiah (Halacha concept that forbids or restricts physical contact with a member of the opposite sex),” a Shas MK said with a smile.

It sounds to me like he does know her.

You know you can count on Israellycool to keep you abreast of all developments regarding Pamela Anderson’s visit to Israel.

"Recognize you as Jewish? Who are you kidding? I can't see a damn thing!"

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas answered a demand by Israel to recognize it as a Jewish state somewhat sardonically, saying that as far as he was concerned, “Israel can call itself… the Jewish-Zionist Empire”. Abbas spoke just before meeting President Shimon Peres in New York.

In an interview with the Palestinian Maan news agency Abbas said the state’s character was “not interesting”, adding that “if Israel wants negotiations in which the Palestinians recognize it, then it must also recognize a Palestinian state”.

Abbas spoke shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations that the recognition would be a central part of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

“Just say it,” Netanyahu called on Abbas. “Say yes to a Jewish state”.

The prime minister explained that he was insisting on this because “this is a move the Palestinians have refused to make for 62 years. Its significance is Palestinian recognition of the right of the Jewish people to self-definition in their historic homeland. I recognized the Palestinians’ right to self-definition, so they must do the same for the Jewish people.”

Palestinian officials have said repeatedly that they would not recognize Israel as Jewish because it would irredeemably revoke the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.

“Just as Israel has given every Jew in the world the right to immigrate to Israel, so should the new state allow Palestinians throughout the world to immigrate to its territory. Palestinian refugees have no place in a Jewish state,” Netanyahu said.

Regarding the Israeli Arabs he said, “A Jewish state means no one has the right to approve a law damaging Israel’s character. There are more than a million non-Jews in Israel who enjoy equal rights, but this does not mean they have national rights. They are free to voted and be chosen, and to be full and equal partners in Israeli democracy, but they do not have the right to create their own state.”

Abbas must make a decision, Netanyahu declared. “He cannot evade the issue nor can use vague words and terms. He must recognize the state as Jewish and say it in a clear manner to his people in their language,” he concluded.

I guess Abbas is saying Israel is free to call itself what it wants…in the same vein that the people he is representing started calling themselves
“palestinians” only after the establishment of the state of Israel.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

5:50PM: Nice.

Britain’s spies have come in from the cold with an authorized history of their early exploits.

“MI6″ is being published Tuesday and tells the story of the country’s foreign intelligence agency from its foundation in 1909 to 1949.

It is written by Keith Jeffery, a historian at Queen’s University Belfast, who had access to previously secret files from the MI6 archive.

The stories describe the agency’s exploits in World War I and World War II, and contain some sensitive revelations. They include an account of Operation Embarrass, in which British agents blew up ships to deter postwar Jewish refugees from sailing to Palestine, then under British control.

The book follows the publication last year of an official history of MI5, Britain’s domestic spy agency.

Next time England lecture us on “concentration camp” Gaza or our actions regarding the flotilla, we should take this book and shove it where the sun don’t shine.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

1:08PM: Introducing our latest weapon: Zionist Nanoparticle of Death.^TM

A new type of nanoparticle that resembles the six-pointed Star of David, a Jewish symbol which appears on the flag of Israel, has been discovered by researchers at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Hebrew University team, headed by researcher Uri Banin, said the star-shaped nanoparticles have a unique, cage-like structure. The discovery is described in an article in the October 2010 issue of the journal Nature Materials.

The particles, which are some 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, may prove useful in applications ranging from the development of new ways to sense glucose in diagnosing diabetes to serving as photo-catalysts for turning solar energy into clean fuel, the university said.

“Exploration into the possible applications for the nano Stars of David has just begun, and already they have shown that they are not just beautiful; the composition and the unique cage shape makes them useful,” the university said in an e-mailed statement.

The Hebrew University team has been working on developing new nanoparticles made of two kinds of materials joined together. Until now, scientists had only been aware of nanoparticles in which one material encapsulates the other, resembling an egg and a yolk, or where an island of one material forms on the other, much like the head of the match on a matchstick, the university said in the statement.

The Star of Davids are “nano-cages,” with hexagonal crystals, each with a tiny metal frame wrapping around them and “encasing them like a bird cage, but 100 million times smaller,” according to the statement. The cage structure has never been observed in hybrid nanoparticles before.

1:00PM: Hamas has denied the Gilad Shalit video I posted about yesterday was their handiwork.

A video which appeared in the Israeli press Monday and attributed to Hamas “was fabricated and false,” officials with the party’s armed wing said Tuesday.

The video showed captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit flanked by two armed men, one who unpacks papers from a briefcase. It ends with a caption reading “Will the mission be completed” as gunshots are heard.

“We have nothing to do with this video,” a statement from Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades said explaining that no video had been prepared or released and adding that whatever appeared on YouTube was a fake.

11:44AM: The gall of (Turkish President) Gul:

Gul said Israel’s deadly attack on the flotilla attempting to breach the Israeli blockade of Gaza would be best handled under international law, but also suggested that Israel still needs to take public responsibility for the attack.

“It is not possible to act as though this incident did not take place,” he said. “In the old world, in the old times, if such an incident were to take place, wars would follow.

Ahh yes, the good old days.

9:00AM: From Shimon Peres’ speech to the UN General Assembly yesterday:

Addressing the UN General Assembly on Monday, President Shimon Peres denounced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying, “There is enough room for friendship in the Middle East,” and later calling him “a living declaration against the charter of the UN.”

He’s also a living warning against inbreeding.

6:18AM: An Arab land dealer claims the PA’s decision to reaffirm the death penalty for palestinians who sell land to Israelis is indicative of their corruption, as well as their lack of seriousness about peace.

One day after the Palestinian Authority reaffirmed the death penalty for Palestinians who sell land to Israelis, one of the most prominent Arab land dealers called on the Israeli authorities to help him and other Palestinians whose lives are at risk.

The veteran land dealer, who asked not to be identified by name – although his identity is known to the PA and many Arab residents in Jerusalem – also appealed to settler groups and American Jewish millionaire Irwin Moskowitz for assistance.

The PA’s latest threat should be taken “very seriously,” the land dealer, who belongs to a large clan in the city, told The Jerusalem Post.

The PA “has many agents in east Jerusalem who serve as informants and enforcers,” he said.

He pointed out that in the past, members of various branches of the PA security forces had abducted and murdered Palestinians suspected of selling land to Israelis. Most of these extra-judicial killings took place between 1995 and 1998, he said.

“I’m really afraid for my life,” the land dealer said. “I have sold a lot of land and houses to Jews over the past 30 years and the Palestinian Authority knows about me.”

He claimed that senior PA officials had also been involved in selling Arabowned houses and land to Israeli settler groups and wealthy American Jews.

“I have all the evidence with me,” he told the Post. “One day I will reveal the identities of top Palestinian civilian and security officials who were involved in such transactions.”

The land dealer, who avoids entering PA-controlled territories in the West Bank, said that he personally acted as mediator and facilitator in some of the deals involving the Palestinian officials.

“The senior officials made a lot of money by selling land and buildings to Israelis in Jerusalem,” he continued.

“They got their kickbacks and became rich.”

Asked why he was withholding the names of the PA officials, he replied: “The day will arrive when I will reveal everything.

They know that they have good reason to be afraid of me.”

He said that among the groups he has helped buy property in east Jerusalem were Ateret Cohanim and Elad. He said he also had a close working relationship with Moskowitz.

The PA security forces tried many times to recruit him as an informant, but to no avail, the land dealer said.

“I don’t trust the Palestinian Authority because most of their leaders and security commanders are in touch with the Shin Bet and Mossad,” he said. “They are mercenaries whose only aim in life is to make as much money as possible. With money you can buy the biggest official in Ramallah.”

The land dealer also told the Post that in the past he paid “protection money” to several PA security forces so that they would not harm him.

“But as soon as I stopped paying them, they started issuing death threats against me for selling land and houses to Jews,” he explained.

“When I used to pay them, it was okay to sell land to Jews. When I stopped, suddenly it became illegal and forbidden.”

The decision to impose the death sentence on Palestinians who sell land to Israelis showed that the PA leadership “was not serious about peace,” he said.

He believes that the decision is first and foremost designed to “cover up” for the corruption of many senior Palestinian officials involved in land deals with Israelis.

“The Palestinian leaders want to appear as patriots in the eyes of their people,” he concluded. “That’s why they have decided to use the death penalty against us.”

Asked if he had been deterred, the land dealer said: “I will continue to work in my business regardless of the threats. It’s a very dangerous business, but I don’t care. As we speak, there are many others who are selling their homes and land to Israelis in Jerusalem, particularly in the Old City. I know that I could be killed any minute, and that’s why I want the Israeli government and all the Jews I have helped to stand with me and not to throw me to the dogs.”

6:10AM: Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert is a big fat liar.

Former US president George W. Bush  did not and could not have agreed to accept 100,000 Palestinian refugees as former prime minister Ehud Olmert claimed in a speech over the weekend, former Bush administration official Elliott Abrams  told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Abrams, who was deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy and held the Middle East portfolio on the National Security Council, said Bush administration officials did believe that if a peace deal was reached with the Palestinians, there would need to be actions by many countries to address the refugee issue, both financially and by offering to take some refugees.

But he said there was no commitment to take 100,000.

“President Bush did not, I am sure, promise or pledge to take 100,000 Palestinian refugees,” Abrams said.

“The president knew, as everyone in the White House knew, that no president has the power to make such a commitment. We have immigration laws and they don’t allow that kind of move by a president. He would have had to ask Congress to change our laws. Moreover, we would never have committed to a specific number anyway, nor did Olmert ask us to or raise that number.”

6:00AM: From the same Ma’an article quoted above:

The president [Abbas] said he was angered by the assassination by Israeli soldiers of a Hamas leader at his home in the West Bank city of Tulkarem on Friday, adding that he demanded that Israel stopped its attacks on Palestinian cities.

What chance is there of reaching a peace agreement with a leader who says he is angered by the killing of a terrorist out to destroy the peace process?

If you say Abbas has to say that to his palestinian audience, what chance is there of peace with a people who for the most part see such terrorists as national heroes?

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"Zionist Pig": One of the many ways Lieberman has been demonized.

During a phone conversation with British counterpart William Hague over the weekend, Lieberman said, “The Palestinians wasted nine months, and even on the tenth month they didn’t join the talks out of a genuine intent to reach an agreement, but because they were coerced.”

The foreign minister claimed the West Bank construction freeze was merely an “excuse” for the Palestinians to thwart the talks, adding that it was now the Palestinian Authority’s turn to prove its seriousness with regards to the peace talks.

“Those who look for excuses will find them even if the freeze is extended,” said Lieberman.

“Israel has made numerous gestures over the past year, and now it’s the Palestinians’ turn. Israel will gladly continue negotiating without preconditions, including those related to the moratorium.

Lieberman told Hague that the international community must support the negotiations by giving Israel incentives and refrain from increasing pressure on the Jewish state to make concessions.

Indeed. The international community needs to put pressure on the palestinians to implement a permanent terrorism and incitement freeze, not to mention recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

9:55PM: Hamas has approved a law permitting the death sentence for drug dealers and up to seven years behind bars for drug users.

9:50PM: Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has claimed the Bush administration was willing to immediately absorb 100,000 palestinian “refugees” as US citizens if a peace deal was reached between Israel and the palestinians.

The former premier told a Geneva Initiative conference in Tel Aviv that during negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2008 he had offered a solution to the refugee problem that would have been in line with the Arab League peace plan and promised that any measures would be the result of a coordinated agreement.

The Bush administration had offered this American contribution to the refugee problem as part of what would be a framework of international compensation, he said.

“I think that if the refugees – many of whom are already second or third generation [Palestinians] living outside of the territories – were given a choice between returning to Israel or the United States, we could guess what they would choose,” he said.

Olmert emphasized that during his address to the Annapolis summit in 2007, he had become the first Israeli prime minister to publicly empathize with the suffering the Palestinians had endured over the years as a result of Israel’s operations.

The former prime minister said that every ruling Israeli government must accept the fact that peace negotiations would be based on the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders and would include a land exchange. Still, he stressed that both sides must realize that neither Palestinians or Israel would ever have full sovereignty over Jerusalem.

Boy am I glad this clown is no longer our Prime Minister.

3:56PM: Some worrying news:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted on Sunday that despite intensive diplomacy, Israel had failed to dissuade Russia from selling advanced missiles to Syria.

Speaking at Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Netanyahu told ministers that Russian plans to go ahead with the delivery of P-800 anti-ship missiles to Syria was “problematic” for Israel.

“We have been aware of this deal for some time and there were discussions with the Russians at every level,” Netanyahu said.

Syria signed a deal to buy the P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles from Russia in 2007. Israel says the weapons pose significant danger to its naval vessels in the Mediterranean and could upset the strategic balance in the region.

“To our regret, the deal is now proceeding in stages and that is problematic for us,” Netanyahu said, adding that the Syrian missiles were part of the reason behind Israel’s recent decision to upgrade its air force with new American F-35 warplanes.

“We are dealing with a new arsenal of missiles and rockets and there has to be a military response to that,” he said.

Incidentally, the Hebrew word for ‘bad person’ is rasha (which sounds a lot like Russia).

Just sayin’.

2:42PM: Honest Reporting with an important find:

Remember the wrangling over the Gaza war’s casualty count, as Hamas and Israel argued over the definition of civilians?

Now, Hamas confirmed that there’s really no distinction between civilian police and “the resistance” groups who attack Israel. Time writes:

Referring to both the uniformed police and the plainclothes Internal Security, one civilian says, “They’re all Qassam.” The government does little to deny it. “Many of the Qassam operate within both the Qassam brigades and the Internal Security,” Interior Ministry spokesman Ehab al-Ghossain tells TIME. “In our laws, we do not prevent any resistance fighter from joining the police or a security service, provided that he is committed to the rules and regulations of the department he belongs to . . . We make sure that their activities, outside of their official jobs, remain separate.”

12:54PM: Last time we checked on the Crazy Water Park in Gaza, Hamas had ordered it to close down “due to men and women mixing at parties held in the park.”

Things have now gone from bad to worse.

Palestinians look at the damage at Crazy Water Park in Gaza City September 19, 2010. Masked gunman torched the three-month-old entertainment park in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Sunday after neutralizing guards, owners and police officials said. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

I am still awaiting condemnation from Free Gaza, the Gaza flotillards, Lauren Booth and the other usual suspects.

11:46AM: And to think I supported Holland in the recent World Cup.

9:54AM: My response to the Egyptian editor of Al-Ahram, regarding his excuse for the photoshopped image of Mubarak et al.

9:05AM: Anti-Israel “pro-Muslim” group CAIR is honoring antisemitic old hag Helen Thomas…for being an antisemitic old hag.

The longtime White House correspondent who resigned from Hearst newspapers in June in the wake of comments she made about Israel will receive a lifetime achievement award from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR is honoring Helen Thomas, who is of Lebanese descent and now 90 years old, at its Leadership Conference and 16th Annual Fundraising Banquet on Oct. 9 in Arlington, Va.

Speakers will also include Oxford Islamic studies scholar Tariq Ramadan.

Thomas started at the White House as a reporter during the Kennedy administration. In a video interview captured at a White House Jewish heritage event for RabbiLIVE.com that spread quickly across the Internet, Thomas advised Israeli Jews to get the hell out of Palestine and go home to Poland, Germany, America and everywhere else.

The White House Correspondents Association and the White House rebuked Thomas, and President Obama said she made the right call in stepping down for the offensive remarks.

Thomas later apologized, saying: I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.”

That’s one ugly woman – inside and out.

6:00AM: Breaking news: PA President Mahmoud Abbas threatens to quit..again.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is once again threatening to resign – this time if the direct peace talks fail, a senior PA official said over the weekend.

Despite Abbas’s latest threats, the PLO and Fatah have yet to start searching for a replacement, the official said.

During a recent meeting of the Fatah Central Committee, Abbas declared: “I have made a decision, and I will announce it at the appropriate time.”

The official told the London- based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper that members of the committee understood Abbas’s declaration as a new threat to resign.

Abbas has over the past few years repeatedly threatened to resign, each time for a different reason.

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REUTERS/Amir Cohen

IAF jets have struck two smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza in response to a Qassam which hit the roof of a building in an educational institution located in the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council, outside of Sderot.

This follows the IAF striking a Hamas-linked terror activity site in northern Gaza, a weapons-manufacturing warehouse in central Gaza, and a weapons-smuggling tunnel in southern Gaza, in response to the grad rocket fired at Israel on Friday morning, which hit the city of Ashkelon (pop. 125,000).

As the IDF Spokesperson blog notes, more than 100 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israeli territory since the beginning of 2010, and over 400 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel since the end of operation Cast Lead.

Meanwhile, Ha’aretz refers to this latest violence as “tit-for-tat”, as if there is some kind of equivalency between the initial attack (aimed to kill civilians) and Israel’s response in self defense. I would suggest the only “tit” here is the Ha’aretz reporter.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:25PM: The palestinian police trainee yearbook makes a return after a five-year absence!

7:14PM: In his latest piece, the detestable Robert Fisk admits he can’t possibly compare Israel with Hamas.

Because Israel is so much worse (hat tip: EoZ via CiF Watch).

The death of five Israeli servicemen in a helicopter crash in Romania this week raised scarcely a headline.

There was a Nato-Israeli exercise in progress. Well, that’s OK then. Now imagine the death of five Hamas fighters in a helicopter crash in Romania this week. We’d still be investigating this extraordinary phenomenon. Now mark you, I’m not comparing Israel and Hamas. Israel is the country that justifiably slaughtered more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza 19 months ago – more than 300 of them children – while the vicious, blood-sucking and terrorist Hamas killed 13 Israelis (three of them soldiers who actually shot each other by mistake).

Read more if you have the stomach for more of this bile, include accusations Israel helped kill Afghans!

It’s no wonder this poor excuse for a journalist and even poorer excuse for a human being triggered a new verb.

6:42PM: Hamas: The Next Generation

4:28PM: The educational institution hit by the Qassam last night was a children’s hydrotherapy rehabilitation center in the heart of Sderot’s Sapir College.

The silence is deafening.

3:54PM: Mandatory reading of the day: Demonizing Israel is bad for the Palestinians (written by a Jordanian of palestinian heritage).

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the international media have been unhesitant in criticizing the Jewish state on almost everything. This has evolved into a media culture by itself, to the point that many internationally renowned newspapers would have a button labelled “Israel” or “Israeli-Arab conflict” on their Web sites including very little positive content about Israel. Media hostility toward Israel has been mainly focused on its military operations and, in more quiet times, on the living conditions of the Palestinians in Israel.

Amazingly enough, the international media, and particularly the Western ones, pay very little attention to the conditions of the Palestinians living in Arab countries, despite the extreme oppression they have been enduring for decades in most Arab countries.

These Palestinians do not have someone to speak for them in the global media, possibly because a news story about countries other than Israel is less interesting or “sexy” by media standards. This tendency to blame Israel for everything has lead to the development of numerous myths about the situation of the Palestinian there that have provided an excuse to purposely ignore and compromise the human rights of the Palestinian in many Arab countries.

THE EXAMPLES for that are plentiful and sometimes cross the line into tragic comedy. While the world is crying over the Israel-imposed blockade on Gaza, the media, for some unknown reason, choose to deliberately ignore the conditions of the Palestinians living in camps in Lebanon.

Lebanon, a country with some of the most hostile forces to Israel, has been holing up Palestinians inside camps for almost 30 years. Those camps do not have any foundations of livelihood or even sanitation and the Palestinians living there are not allowed access to basics such as buying cement to enlarge or repair homes for their growing families. Furthermore, it is difficult for them to work legally, and are even restricted from going out of their camps at certain hours. Compare this to the fact that Palestinian laborers were still able to go to work every day in Israel while Hamas was carrying out an average of one suicide bombing per week a few years ago, and until recently launching missiles daily on southern Israel. Not to mention the fact that Israel allows food items and medications into Gaza if handled through the Palestinian Authority.

The Lebanese atrocities toward the Palestinians have been tolerated by the international community, not only by the media. Today, while some Israeli military commanders have to think twice, in fear of legal consequences, before they visit London or Brussels, well-known Lebanese leaders who had directly participated in mass killings of Palestinian civilians, during and after the Lebanese civil war, are becoming world-respected political figures – Nabih Berri, for example, the leader of Amal Shi’ite militia who enforced a multi-year siege on Palestinian camps, cutting water access and food supplies to them. The Palestinians underBerri’s siege were reported to be consuming rats and dogs to survive. Nonetheless, he has been the undisputed speaker of the Lebanese parliament for a long time. He travels frequently to Europe and criticizes Israel for its “crimes against the Palestinians” on every occasion.

MANY OTHER Arab countries are no different than Lebanon in their ill-treatment and discrimination against the Palestinians. Why do the media choose to ignore those and focus only on Israel? While the security wall being built by Israel has become a symbol of “apartheid” in the global media, they almost never address the actual walls and separation barriers that have been isolating Palestinian refugee camps in Arab countries for decades.

While Palestinians targeted by the IDF are mostly fighters pledging war on Israel, the world swiftly overlooked the Sabra and Shatila massacre in which Lebanese Christian and Shi’ite militiamen butchered thousands of Palestinian women and children. Unsurprisingly, the international media accused Israel of being responsible for the massacre, despite the fact that live testimonies aired by Al-Jazeera satellite television a few years ago show massacre survivors confirming that IDF commanders and soldiers had nothing to do with the killing.

The demonization of Israel by the global media has greatly harmed the Palestinians’ interests for decades and covered up Arab atrocities against them. Furthermore, demonizing Israel has been well-exploited by several Arab dictatorships to direct citizens’ rage against Israel instead of their regimes and also to justify any atrocities they commit in the name of protecting their nations from “the evil Zionists.”

This game has served some of the most notorious Arab dictatorships, and still does today, as any opposition is immediately labelled “a Zionist plot.”

This model had served Gamal Abdel Nasser in ruling Egypt with an iron fist until he died, and was the main line for Saddam Hussein, who was promoting that “Iraq and Palestine are one identical case” in his last years in power.

The global media must be fair in addressing the Palestinians’ suffering in Arab countries and must stop demonizing Israel. It should start focusing on the broader conditions of the Palestinians in the Middle East region.

There is much to see.

2:52PM: I’ve posted this incredible interactive map on Middle Eastern Strategic Threats designed to show the global range of Iran, Syria, and Lebanon‘s missile capabilities (via JCPA).

11:56AM: Chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat claims the PA has submitted a far-reaching peace proposal to the Obama administration that is more generous to Israel than the demands presented by Mahmoud Abbas to former prime minister Ehud Olmert, and will end the conflict with Israel and resolve all palestinian claims.

“I presented Senator George Mitchell with a series of official documents,” Erekat said, referring to the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East. “We gave him maps and papers that clearly state our positions on all the final-status issues: borders, Jerusalem, refugees, water and security. Thus far we have not received any answer from the Israeli side.”

When asked if the Palestinian positions were similar to those presented during talks with Olmert, Erekat replied: “It’s more than that. I cannot go into details on what exactly was proposed, but Abu Mazen [PA President Mahmoud Abbas] offered more in these documents than what he proposed to Olmert in the past. Abu Mazen took bigger steps to reach peace.”

Earlier this year Erekat distributed a document to European diplomats saying the PA had offered Olmert a swap that would let Israel annex 1.9 percent of the West Bank. The document also claimed that the PA had expressed a willingness to accept an Israeli proposal to allow 15,000 Palestinian refugees to return to the country every year over 10 years.

International media outlets reported earlier this year that the PA had agreed to land swaps equaling 2.3 percent, while another report said it had accepted a swap of 3.8 percent. Erekat confirmed to Haaretz that the Palestinians have become more flexible on this issue.

Meanwhile, Erekat has also denied reports that the Obama administration had threatened sanctions against the PA if Abbas did not agree to enter direct talks with Israel over a final-status agreement.

Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian lawmaker and a member of the PLO central committee, told the pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi that Washington “applied tremendous pressures on the Palestinian Authority so that it would move to direct talks.”

Ashrawi said the United States threatened to downgrade or even sever ties with Ramallah.

Another Arab language newspaper, Al-Hayat, reported that Obama had sent a special communique to Abbas last month that said Washington would not work to extend the Israeli construction freeze in West Bank settlements if the Palestinian leader continued to oppose direct negotiations. According to the report, Obama made clear to Abbas that the United States would reject any Palestinian efforts to appeal to the Security Council in lieu of direct talks with Israel.

During an Arab League meeting in Cairo on Thursday, Abbas said he had been subject to intense pressure to agree to direct talks. Erekat confirmed that many Arab leaders sought to persuade the Palestinian leader to reconsider his position, but he denied any suggestions that Washington had threatened the PA.

“[The communique] stated that if the Palestinians do not enter direct discussions, reaching a two-state solution will be even more difficult and the Americans’ ability to help in that regard will be even more limited,” Erekat said. “There were no threats.”

I have yet to hear Erekat speak the truth, so treat everything he says with extreme caution.

8:56AM: Israeli President Shimon Peres has gone on the offensive against the English, accusing them of antisemitism.

Shimon Peres said England was “deeply pro-Arab … and anti-Israeli”, adding: “They always worked against us.”

He added: “There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary.”

His remarks, made in an interview on a Jewish website, provoked anger from senior MPs and Jewish leaders who said the 87-year-old president had “got it wrong”.

But other groups backed the former Israeli prime minister and said the number of anti-semitic incidents had risen dramatically in the UK in recent years.

The controversy follows the furore last week over David Cameron’s remark that Gaza was a “prison camp”, as he urged Israel to allow aid and people to move freely in and out of the Palestinian territory.

Mr Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is three years into his seven-year term as president and was awarded an honorary knighthood by the Queen in 2008, said that England’s attitude towards Jews was Israel’s “next big problem”.

“There are several million Muslim voters, and for many members of parliament, that’s the difference between getting elected and not getting elected,” he said.

“And in England there has always been something deeply pro-Arab, of course, not among all Englishmen, and anti-Israeli, in the establishment.

“They abstained in the [pro-Zionist] 1947 UN partition resolution … They maintained an arms embargo against us in the 1950s … They always worked against us. They think the Arabs are the underdogs.”

By contrast, relations with Germany, France and Italy were “pretty good”, he added.

He made the comments in an interview with the historian Professor Benny Morris of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev published last week in Tablet, a Jewish news website.

The wide-ranging interview covered Mr Peres’ role as one of Israel’s longest-serving political leaders – an MP for 48 years, twice prime minister, and holder of other ministerial posts over the decades. He is firmly on the Israeli Left.

He was awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 jointly with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat for his part as foreign minister in the peace talks which produced the landmark Oslo Accords.

But following his comments, James Clappison, the Conservative MP for Hertsmere and vice-chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel, said: “Mr Peres has got this wrong.

“There are pro- and anti-Israel views in all European countries. Things are certainly no worse, as far as Israel is concerned, in this country than other European countries.”

The MP added that he could “understand the frustration” that people in Israel felt with “certain elements of the British broadcast media” which present an unbalanced view of Israel.

He said: “I can understand Mr Peres’ concerns, but I don’t recognise what he is saying about England.”

Yet in Israel, Mr Peres is far from alone in holding such views, which have gained a wider following, particularly on the Right, since the expulsion of an Israeli diplomat over accusations that Mossad sent agents using British passports to assassinate a Hamas commander in Dubai.

Aryeh Eldad, a right-wing member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, accused Britain of working against Israeli interests for decades – ever since it “betrayed” its promises to build a Jewish homeland when it governed Palestine under a League of Nations mandate.

“Both governments from the right and the left prefer Arab interests over Israeli interests,” said Mr Eldad, whose father Israel was a leading figure in the Stern Gang, the most radical of the Jewish terror groups that fought British mandatory rule.

“The other layer is an ongoing, subtle form of anti-semitism. It is not as overt as it was in Germany, it is a quiet, polite form.”

Some leading Jewish commentators in Britain disagreed. Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, minister of Maidenhead synagogue and a writer and broadcaster, said: “I am surprised at Peres. It is a sweeping statement that is far too one-sided.

“Britain has supported both Israel and Arab causes at different periods over the last 50 years. There are elements of anti-semitism but it is not endemic to British society.

“The tolerance and pluralism here make Britain one of the best countries in the world in which to live.”

Mr Peres found support, however, from other pro-Israeli groups. Jacob Vince, the director of Christian Friends of Israel, said there was anti-semitism in the UK although many people had a positive view of Israel but were unwilling to express it publicly.

Mr Vince said it was “difficult to see how many MPs would not be influenced by the number of Muslim voters in their constituencies”.

The Government was not treating Arabs as the underdogs but rather was trying to appease them, he said. “The question is how well they understand those with whom they are seeking conciliation.”

Mr Peres is “measured and moderate,” he added.

He said: “His comments have serious connotations and I am sure would not be said lightly.”

One Israeli politician expressed disbelief that the doveish Mr Peres had launched such a broadside against the British.

Benny Begin, a cabinet minister whose father Menachem was prime minister and before that leader of Irgun, the group that killed 91 people in an attack on Jerusalem’s King David Hotel in 1946, said: “Peres? I simply can’t believe he said that.”

I wonder if this means Peres’ will be handing back his honorary knighthood.

6:20AM: ITN News report on Friday night’s IAF strike, which refers to Gaza as “occupied” – which is only true if they are referring to Hamas’ occupation (hat tip: Anon)

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President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi joined other world leaders and top-ranking military officers in extending condolences to the government, people and army of Poland as well as to the families of the victims of the plane crash that took the lives of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, Maria, and other senior dignitaries and military personnel.

—-

Netanyahu, who met with Kaczynski in Poland and sat alongside him less than three months ago at the International Holocaust Awareness ceremony commemorating the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, issued a statement, saying, “I knew Kaczynski as a Polish patriot, a great friend of Israel and a leader who did much for his people and to further world peace and prosperity.”

Netanyahu said Kaczynski led an important process to begin a new chapter in relations between Poles and Jews, and between Poland and Israel.

Lieberman and Barak also issued statements mourning the loss, with the foreign minister praising Kaczynski as a “true friend” of Israel who proved his friendship in both words and deeds.

Barak said Kaczynski’s death was a “great loss to his people and to the entire world.”

Peres, who had spent a considerable amount of time with Kaczynski in April, 2008, when Peres paid a state visit to Poland for the 65th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, expressed Israel’s shock at the tragedy that struck Poland.

“The news of the tragic accident that has taken the lives of my friend, President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria Kaczynska, and prominent members of Poland’s leadership and its parliament, has been received with a great deal of pain, shock and distress,” said Peres.

“This tragic event is a dreadful blow to the Polish people and to the world at large. My friend, President Kaczynski, was among those who led and advanced change in his country, and represented free Poland, democratic Poland and modern Poland.”

Peres also praised the work of Kaczynski and his wife to promote closer ties between the Poles and Jews by helping to “heal the scars of the past,” and emphasized that bilateral ties between Israel and Poland had been strengthened during Kaczynski’s presidency.

Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev made the point that Kaczynski, who visited Yad Vashem twice, saw importance in maintaining the memory of the Holocaust, and that the subject of Righteous Among the Nations was particularly close to his heart.

Kaczynski was an ardent promoter of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, for which he gave the land when he was mayor of Warsaw. The museum is being built alongside the Warsaw Ghetto monument.

It is not yet known who will represent Israel at Kaczynski’s funeral. According to protocol, it should be Peres, who is leaving for Paris on Tuesday for the dedication of a square to be named in honor of his mentor, and Israel’s founding prime minister, David Ben Gurion. He may continue on to Poland if the funeral is held later in the week. A spokesperson for Beit Hanassi told The Jerusalem Post that the situation is still unclear.

Among the other victims of the tragedy were Chief of the Polish Army’s General Staff Franciszek Gagor, the Ground Troops’ commander Gen. Tadeusz Buk, Air Force Commander Gen. Andrzej Blasik and the special-purpose troops’ commander Gen. Wlodzimierz Potashinski.

In a condolence message to the Polish Defense Forces and their commanders, as well as to the family of Gagor, Ashkenazi said that he had met with Gagor several times over the past three years. He recalled in particular a NATO conference and a time when Gagor had hosted him while Ashkenazi was in Poland to participate in the March of the Living.

Ashkenazi described Gagor as “a superb army man” and remarked on his keen interest in IDF officers who participated in the Witnesses in Uniform program in which the IDF teaches its young officers about the Holocaust by taking them to the death camps and explaining what happened there. Ashkenazi said that he and Gagor had conversed at length on the program, and it had been of importance to Gagor that the officers meet with counterparts in the Polish Army so that they could realize that Poland’s new generation was also being educated about the lessons of the Holocaust.

Meanwhile, the upcoming March of the Living in Auschwitz will go on as planned, while also honoring the victims of the plane crash.

“In the keynote event we shall give expression to the sorrow, mourning, and condolences over the disaster that happened here,” March of the Living Director Aharon Tamir said. “We will attach black ribbons to our flags in order to properly honor the Poles’ pain. President Kaczynski was a great friend of the March and received delegations. I personally met him three times.”

—-

Meanwhile, Science Minister Daniel Hershkowitz delivered an address in memory of the Polish plane crash victims during a ceremony in Krakow honoring Righteous Gentiles.

The minister spoke of the late president’s “special friendship” with Israel, and stressed that Kaczynski was “undoubtedly one of Israel’s greatest friends.”

“Even though we cannot compare the current times to the Holocaust era, we can refer to him as a Righteous Gentile,” Hershkowitz said.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:22PM: The official Yom Hashoa ceremony at Yad Vashem is taking place now. You can watch it live online here.

3:25PM: Israelis have been arriving at the Polish Embassy in Tel Aviv to show their support for the people of Poland.

Memorial candles and flowers were placed at the building’s entrance, as well as a note from “the Tel Aviv neighbors.” Several embassy clerks also arrived at the site. The Polish flag was flown at half-mast.

Urshala Lavdonska, a polish immigrant who made aliyah three years ago, placed flowers and lit candles at the site. “It’s very sad. Kaczynski was a president we all loved,” she said.

Avraham Ladar, a Ramat Gan resident who was born in Poland also came to pay his respects. “I immigrated from Poland 60 years ago and it’s still very painful. Kaczynski was a great friend to the Jewish people. It’s very symbolic that he died a day before the eve of the Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

Tzvia Halachmi from Ramat Gan said she came to sign a memoir book which is due for release by the embassy on behalf of her friend, a 70-year-old Holocaust survivor from Haifa.

“Israel doesn’t have many friends in the world like the Polish president. We are shocked and mourning the fact that he of all people has gone. We lost an avid supporter who always lent us a warm shoulder,” she said.

Zoya Namensikov, a native Ukrainian said, “How is it possible that such a thing has happened? Letting a president fly in a plane that crashes? It feels like war.”

Oren Patoka from Haifa went an extra step and placed the Polish flag on his house porch. “I am the third generation of Holocaust survivors. I always had mixed feelings about the Polish people, but they were also the ones who saved my grandmother.

“When I heard about the crash I checked up about Lech Kaczynski and discovered he made honest efforts to commemorate the Shoah. He wanted to build a Holocaust museum in Warsaw. I felt a tingle in my heart for those Polish people who did help, not the anti-Semites.”

Patoka also noted that by placing the flag he was honoring the unknown Righteous among the Nations.

11:05AM: According to Ha’aretz, the Shin Bet has requested that an Israeli Arab man working as part of the cleaning staff in former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s gym be transferred from the premises to a different workplace due to security sensitivities.

Here is perhaps some important contextual information that Ha’aretz sees fit to omit.

11:00AM: Further reasons why Gaza is not like a big concentration camp.

#22: Clan brawls.

#23: Horse-drawn wedding ceremonies.

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Israel is bracing itself for the possibility that Australia will follow Britain and expel an Israeli diplomat in response to the use of four forged Australian passports in the assassination of a Hamas commander.

Israeli government sources last night told The Australian that of the countries whose passports were stolen, Australia was the most likely to follow Britain’s lead.

In the immediate aftermath of Britain’s decision, Israeli officials thought Australia was unlikely to follow suit.

But that assessment changed distinctly last night. It appears that Israeli officials have received indications in Canberra that Australia is preparing to expel a diplomat. They would not comment.

Forged passports from Britain, Ireland, Germany, France and Australia were used in the assassination in January of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

At the time, Australia called in the Israeli ambassador to Canberra, Yuval Rotem, to question him about the use of the passports of the four Australians, who all have dual Australian-Israeli citizenship and who live in Israel.

Kevin Rudd said afterwards that Australia was not satisfied with the answers given by Mr Rotem.

Israel has maintained there is no proof the operation was carried out by Israel’s secret service Mossad, as suspected.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband telephoned his Australian counterpart, Stephen Smith, to explain London’s decision to expel the Israeli, who has been described by the British press as Mossad’s London station chief.

Yesterday, Mr Smith would not say if Australia would follow suit, saying the Australian Federal Police had yet to finalise its own report into the affair.

But he said the AFP would have access to the report of Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, whose investigation found it was “highly likely” Israel was behind the forgeries.

That formed the basis of Britain’s decision to expel the diplomat.

“Obviously, the AFP have been liaising with their British counterparts,” Mr Smith said.

Mr Smith said Canberra took the misuse of Australian passports very seriously and said that had been conveyed to Israeli authorities.

“Obviously, we’ll take into account what other countries have done, and the United Kingdom is not the only country caught up in this. Regrettably there’s also France, Ireland and Germany,” he said.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

5:18PM: Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has invoked the Manuel defense.

3:00PM: Here is White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dealing with questions about the lack of photos and footage of Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama.

And by dealing, I mean flailing his arms around in the water as he slowly drowns. Figuratively speaking of course.

You can see it from 11:30 onwards (hat tip: Carl).

12:20PM: Quote of the day:

“We are not a leftist government, and construction in Jerusalem is part of the consensus – it is the capital of the people of Israel.”

“We do not want to fight with our great friend, but our responsibility is towards the people of Israel. We are an independent state and not an American dependant. We must avoid a situation whereby we close down the Knesset and government, hand (US President Barack) Obama the keys and allow him to tell us what to do.”

“If the Americans will realize that the Israeli government has red lines – they will respect that.”

- Israeli Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz

8:50AM: Dore Gold tackles the widening belief that Israel is a strategic liability to the US.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was right to speak about U.S.-Israeli strategic ties during his speech at Tuesday’s AIPAC conference.

During the recent bilateral tensions between the Obama administration and the Israeli government, a vicious rumor began to spread that the U.S. feels that Israeli “intransigence” in the peace process puts U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan at risk.

The source of this rumor was not Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Central Command, who recently testified before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. Petraeus is concerned with the possible outbreak of an initifada that is shown on the Al-Jazeera satellite network and foments rage in the Arab street that weakens the legitimacy of his Arab military partners.

Yet the idea that Israel was putting U.S. forces at risk began to spread inside the Washington beltway. For example, Jake Tapper, White House correspondent for ABC News, interviewed President Obama’s political advisor, David Axelrod, March 14 and asked whether the Israeli “housing issue” put the lives of U.S. troops at risk.

When Axelrod refused to answer, Tapper persisted and asked the question a second time. Clearly this idea has penetrated the thinking of political reporters.

Columnist Jeffrey Goldberg wrote that linking construction plans at Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood to the security of U.S. forces in the Middle East actually came from Israeli press reports of the meeting between Vice President Joe Biden and Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Biden’s spokesman denied those reports when Goldberg made a formal inquiry.

The net effect of rumors of this sort is to reinforce the image of Israel as a strategic burden rather than as a strategic asset, which only exacerbated the current tensions. For years, there has been a whole cottage industry of anti-Israel forces, who have been trying to promote this view across the United States.

It began with professors Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, who argued in their 2007 book, The Israeli Lobby, that Israel is nothing less than “a strategic liability.” They have made significant inroads in universities and think tanks, so that the rumors about Jerusalem building projects threatening soldiers in Afghanistan fell on fertile ground.

Netanyahu argued at AIPAC that Israel has actually helped save the lives of Americans. Historically, he is absolutely correct to paint Israel’s strategic partnership this way. In August 1966, the Mossad succeeded in recruiting an Iraqi Air Force pilot who flew his MiG-21 to Israel.

The intelligence on the MiG-21 was shared with Washington and would prove to be extremely valuable, considering the fact that the MiG-21 was the work-horse of the North Vietnamese Air Force in the years that followed.

Israel supplied the Americans with many other Soviet weapons systems, from 130mm artillery to T-72 tanks. Gen. George Keegan, the former head of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, was quoted in the New York Times on March 9, 1986, saying that the intelligence the U.S. received from Israel could not have been obtained if the U.S. had “five CIAs.”

Keegan went further: “The ability of the U.S. Air Force in particular, and the Army in general, to defend whatever position it has in NATO owes more to the Israeli intelligence input than it does to any single source of intelligence.”

Even after the Cold War, Israel continues to be a vital American strategic partner. In 2007, the U.S. ambassador to Israel revealed that Israeli technology was being used by the U.S. armed forces in Iraq to protect them from Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) that were responsible for most U.S. casualties in the Iraq War.

In short, Israel was helping save American lives in Iraq.

On March 15, 2007, the commander of EUCOM, Gen. Bantz Craddock, told the House Armed Services Committee that “in the Middle East, Israel is the U.S.’s closest ally that consistently and directly supports our interests.”

During his AIPAC speech, Netanyahu disclosed: “Israel shares with America everything” that it knows about their common enemies, especially intelligence.

When states like the U.S. and Israel have high-profile diplomatic disagreements, it is sometimes the nature of the press to seek the dramatic. A learned debate about the applicability of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention to Jerusalem would be fitting for Yale Law School, but it does not sell newspapers.

For that reason, the Obama administration has a special responsibility to contain its tensions with Israel. It would be a serious development if the disagreement over Israel’s rights in Jerusalem spilled over into the strategic relationship between the two countries.

Netanyahu tried to contain this problem at AIPAC, but both sides need to make sure that unnecessary diplomatic tensions do not sacrifice their long-held strategic interests that have served the security of both countries.

Meanwhile, here is Gen. David Petraeus setting the record straight on his comments widely quoted in the blogosphere.

6:10AM: Yet another photo showing that IDF troops were not up against mere “stone-throwing youth” during the recent “days of rage”.

A masked Palestinian demonstrator carries an axe during clashes with Israeli troops in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Issawiya (AP)

Unless you want to argue that there’s nothing wrong with building a log cabin during the middle of a protest.

6:02AM: Charles Krauthammer making sense (as usual) on East Jerusalem.

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The American envoy also called on “the parties, and all concerned, to refrain from any statements or actions which may inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of these talks.”

Sources in the Prime Minister’s Bureau expressed satisfaction that negotiations are restarting after more than a year, but refused to comment on the details of the process.

The United States has told the Palestinians that if the sides do not meet expectations, it will “act accordingly.”

A senior Palestinian source told Haaretz Monday that the Palestinians and the Arab League have received American assurances that “we will be actively involved in managing the indirect talks, and also proposing ideas and bridging ideas of our own.”

The U.S. has allotted the process four months to reach results. Regarding whether the U.S. would then announce whether the sides’ positions reflect the international consensus on the conflict, the Americans told the Palestinians that the U.S. “expects both sides to behave seriously, with honesty and in good will because, if one of the sides, in our judgment, does not fulfill our expectations, we will make our concerns clear and we will act accordingly in order to overcome every obstacle.”

The announcement that negotiations are resuming came despite disagreements between the three sides over the structure of the talks.

—-

In a Jerusalem meeting with quartet envoys on Friday, Mitchell’s deputy David Hale said the negotiations after Annapolis and the understandings reached by Tzipi Livni and Ahmed Qureia, as well as Ehud Olmert and Abbas, would not be binding.

The talks will be based on agreements signed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, including the road map.

Olmert had offered Abbas an Israeli withdrawal from 94 percent of the West Bank, and Israeli territory in exchange for the remaining 6 percent. In addition, Israel would symbolically accept 5,000 Palestinian refugees and enable international governance for the holy sites in the Old City.

Abbas never responded to Olmert’s offer, but the Palestinians insisted that the negotiations resume from where they stopped during Olmert’s term as prime minister.

The U.S. apparently accepted Israel’s position on the matter, which was to ignore everything that was not signed as part of an agreement.

The talks will also be based on the Obama administration’s two statements from the past year: President Barack Obama’s speech to the United Nations, which described the goal of a secure, Jewish state in Israel alongside a viable, independent Palestine and an end to the 1967 occupation; and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement regarding a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with territory exchanges, combined with Israel’s desire for a secure Jewish state that includes “recent developments,” meaning the settlement blocs

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:15PM: More stolen passports. Except something’s different this time.

Three Iranians were caught holding stolen Israeli passports as they arrived in the an archipelago nation of Seychelles, northeast of Madagascar, the Israeli daily newspaper Ma’ariv reported on Tuesday.

The three were reportedly detained at Seychelles International Airport and were returned to Nairobi where their flight originated.

Seychelles authorities informed Israel, who’s authorities allegedly revealed that the passports were stolen from Israeli passengers while they were visiting Thailand.

“Israeli security circles believe the Iranians intended to carry out attacks against Israeli tourists in Seychelles especially as the Jewish Passover holiday nears,” Ma’ariv quoted Israeli security sources as saying.

8:05PM: Today’s must read is from Alan Howe of the Melbourne Herald Sun, who deals with the Mossad’s supposed hit in Dubai, and the resultant backlash.

Here are the latest scores in the war on terror. If you don’t want to know, look away now.

Israelis 1, Palestinians 0.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a virtueless scrap of humanity, is dead. All good so far.

But how he died and who killed him have now become the story.

There are two possibilities about his death in Dubai: that he was killed in a pillow fight gone wrong; or that Mossad agents bumped him off in a daring, indeed thrillingly bold, assassination on enemy soil. Israel isn’t saying anything. That’s the second scenario confirmed then.

On the evening of January 19, four people entered the Palestinian’s room at the Al-Bustan Rotana Hotel using an electronic device that decoded Mabhouh’s pass.

The assassins ambushed their target, injected him with a paralysing sedative and then suffocated him using a pillow. It was all over in 10 minutes. Nothing in the room was disturbed. The killers left calmly, leaving the door locked – from the inside.

The agents – and another 23 colleagues who joined them as plotters, spotters and decoys – then headed for the airport, flying to Asia and Europe.

That’s a slick operation. You have to stand in awe at the audacity of the planning and the courage of the men – and one woman – who volunteered for it. Just 19 hours earlier none of them had even arrived in Dubai.

Al-Mabhouh had been gloating recently about how he killed two Israeli soldiers in 1989. He had a brain-squirming hatred for the Israelis who claim evidence that he spent his days smuggling rockets into Gaza. Ever since the Israelis retreated from their territory and left the locals to their own devices Gazans have thanked their neighbours with an almost ceaseless volley of deadly rockets.

Just days off turning 50, al-Mabhouh knew he was a worthy target for assassination. Usually, he travelled with a team of bodyguards, but they couldn’t get seats on his flight, which was said to be the first leg of a weapons-buying trip to Thailand.

To help secure the success of this well-thought-out killing, Mossad’s agents travelled on forged passports appearing to have been issued in Germany, France, Ireland, the UK and Australia.

Foreign ministers from these countries, including our own Stephen Smith, have been mildly critical of Israel, at least compared with the excitable Hamas spokesman who told Israel to “prepare to receive the hellfire of our anger”. What, and that’s new?

Our reaction was more subdued; forging Australian passports was not “the act of a friend”.

Yes it was.

We cancelled the screening in Parliament House of an Israeli film called Noodle.

Take that, Tel Aviv!

Then we sent a small team from the Australian Federal Police to investigate the passport issue.

Uh-oh. That’s asking for trouble. Yet to recover from the laugh-a-minute leadership of Mick Keelty, the AFP is capable of almost anything. Within hours of arriving in Tel Aviv, these Keystone clowns had screeched out of the underground car park beneath the Australian embassy there, hit a woman riding a bicycle and sped off.

The Mossad team also can be said to have done a hit and run, but I know who I’d want looking after my interests.

The woman they hit, Oshra Bar, 22, wants an apology from the AFP. Maybe that will come after they have worked up the courage to grovel to Dr Mohamed Haneef, the Brisbane doctor they falsely charged with providing assistance to terrorists, ruining his life.

If Australia’s security services had to defend Israel, surrounded as it is by Arabs who attack it regularly and who, with a few Persian nutters running Iran – all of them united under the Koran – now plan its nuclear destruction, Israelis would clog their country’s airports seeking a quick exit.

Even that brave people would know the game was up.

What could the agents of our Australian Secret Intelligence Service do in defence of the Middle East’s lone democracy – don monkey masks and take on Hamas?

That’s what they did during exercises at the Sheraton Hotel on Spring St. Disguised in “grotesque masks” they stormed the 10th floor, destroying property, panicking guests and assaulting the hotel manager. Taxpayers attended to the compensation bill, which ran to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Imagine if they – we – had real enemies. Australia’s security services and federal police are a hopeless embarrassment and that would be a serious problem for us all if we had anything other than oceans for neighbours.

It was reported that a former ASIS agent said last week that forging passports was old hat – indeed as old as the espionage game itself. It’s probably fair to assume we have done the same – if your security agency has the words secret in its title, don’t expect to find out – but there is less need for it. Australian agents don’t need to travel the globe eliminating people who threaten our very existence.

In any case, I can picture now passports forged by ASIS. Two innocents from, say, Nunawading, have had their identity stolen, but the pictures are certainly not of them. Standing before the immigration desk at Ben-Gurion Airport are two men. The talkative one is in a blue jacket, red polka dot bow tie and red-and-white striped bucket hat on which is written Peters Ice Cream. “No, I’m Zig!” he insists.

Security in Israel is no joking matter. Except to the United Nations, which last year hosted a conference against racism unforgivably inviting the unpredictable Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak. He ranted about how the Holocaust never happened – he doesn’t want anything overshadowing the modern nuclear holocaust he plans.

IT’S bad enough that the UN cannot get international action to make a rogue state such as Iran adhere to its Non-Proliferation Treaty on nuclear weapons.

So, mostly alone but always threatened, Israel is forced to police its own future. Its defence must always be in its own hands.

That’s why, on a Sunday afternoon in June 1981, using US provided satellite pictures it sent in its American-made fighter jets to bomb and destroy Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility just outside Baghdad.

The nuclear plant – being built using technology supplied by the West’s most unreliable “ally”, France – was near completion, but was to have been used only for the peaceful generation of power. Saddam Hussein had promised.

At the time, Israel’s critics condemned it for trying to be the region’s police, and pointed out that it had long been suspected that Israel itself was moving towards becoming a nuclear power. Golly, why would it be doing that?

Quietly, over the years, after having breathed a sigh of relief, most of the world came to understand what a favour that little country had performed for them.

These days attention has turned towards Iran and its development of a nuclear program. This, too, is to generate power. Then why hide it at terrific expense under the desert?

Gaza is an Iranian proxy state where that country’s hate for the West is played out in fights against Israel.

This is the War on Terror.

Iran is the terror. Its Gaza agents are the terrorists. We must kill them.

And next on the agenda is Iran’s nuclear plant.

Bonus: You can also read Alan Howe’s answers to reader questions at the link, using the same software I did to liveblog the last Israeli elections with my pal Barry Rubin.

6:15PM: Israel has reacted as follows to a claim by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Israel accepted Turkey as a mediator for talks with Syria.

However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Office denied that Israel has decided to renew negotiations with Syria with Turkish mediation.

“No decision was made to renew the Turkish mediation, but if this reflects Turkey’s wish to strengthen its relations with Israel and support peace in the region – it is naturally a blessed aspiration,” the statement read.

I would have thought a better response would be “Turkish can take its mediation offer and stick it where the sun don’t shine.”

5:15PM: Separated at birth?

4:40PM: Quote of the day:

“A person like Ahmadinejad, who calls openly to destroy the state of Israel, cannot be a full member of the United Nations.”

“A man who calls for acts of terror, and who hangs people in the street … he should be placed in his proper definition. He cannot go around almost like a cultural hero.”

“Ahmadinejad has to be isolated and not be welcomed in the capitals of the world.”

- Israeli President Shimon Peres, as he met visiting U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden in Jerusalem.

12:50PM: Israeli President Shimon Peres meets with visiting US Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden: I hope he doesn’t kiss me.

Peres: “You know, I really like what you’ve done with your hair.”

6:18AM: Here is Colonel Desmond Travers, one of the members of the UN Fact Finding Mission that produced the Goldstone Report, answering a question regarding evidence that Gaza mosques were being used to store weapons, contrary to his assertions.

Notice how a main part of Travers’ answer is “If I was an insurgent – and I have insurgent ancestors – the last place I would place military material into is a place of worship because it is an unreliable repository of military materials. It is too open and too insecure.” Besides the laughable suggestion that he is somehow qualified to make that statement because of his ancestors, the answer ignores a main reason why the palestinian terrorists do use mosques in this way – it is a great hiding place since many people frequent mosques, they know Israel will be loathe to strike them and if they do, it will cause great pressure and condemnation to bear down on Israel (as has been the case). Travers’ inability to see that the terrorists love to use civilian areas – including open and insecure places like residential houses – to store weapons speaks volumes about the veracity of his findings.

Notice also how he avoids another question regarding an anti-Semitic statement of his.

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