Incidentally, the leftist Ha’aretz had the figure at approximately 5,000.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:22PM: Golda Meir once made the following now-famous statement:

“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

This next story is yet more proof that the palestinians would rather their own suffer than benefit Israelis.

The Palestinian government will move to prevent Palestinian workers from taking jobs in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the Palestinian economics minister said Sunday.

Palestinians vehemently oppose the settlements Israel has built on land they want for a future state, but an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Palestinians work in the settlements. Palestinian construction workers have been key to building homes for settlers, while others work in factories in settlements. Many say the West Bank’s poor economy leaves them no choice.

The law, set to be signed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by the end of the month, would constitute the most determined Palestinian campaign yet against the settlement economy.

Economics Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh, who drafted the law, said it is important for the Palestinians to be consistent with its opposition. “My population, my society, is contributing to the lifeline of settlements, so I am targeting this contribution,” he said.

8:00PM: The BBC has all the goss on the Lemba, our brothas from anotha motha.

In many ways, the Lemba tribe of Zimbabwe and South Africa are just like their neighbours.

But in other ways their customs are remarkably similar to Jewish ones.

They do not eat pork, they practise male circumcision, they ritually slaughter their animals, some of their men wear skull caps and they put the Star of David on their gravestones.

Their oral traditions claim that their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land about 2,500 years ago.

It may sound like another myth of a lost tribe of Israel, but British scientists have carried out DNA tests which confirm their Semitic origin.

These tests back up the group’s belief that a group of perhaps seven men married African women and settled on the continent. The Lemba, who number perhaps 80,000, live in central Zimbabwe and the north of South Africa.

And they also have a prized religious artefact that they say connects them to their Jewish ancestry – a replica of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant known as the ngoma lungundu, meaning “the drum that thunders”.

The object went on display recently at a Harare museum to much fanfare, and instilled pride in many of the Lemba.

“For me it’s the starting point,” says religious singer Fungisai Zvakavapano-Mashavave.

“Very few people knew about us and this is the time to come out. I’m very proud to realise that we have a rich culture and I’m proud to be a Lemba.

“We have been a very secretive people, because we believe we are a special people.”

The Lemba have many customs and regulations that tally with Jewish tradition.

They wear skull caps, practise circumcision, which is not a tradition for most Zimbabweans, avoid eating pork and food with animal blood, and have 12 tribes.

Many people say that the story is far-fetched, but the oral traditions of the Lemba have been backed up by science

They slaughter animals in the same way as Jewish people, and they put the Jewish Star of David on their tombstones.

Members of the priestly clan of the Lemba, known as the Buba, were even discovered to have a genetic element also found among the Jewish priestly line.

“This was amazing,” said Prof Tudor Parfitt, from the University of London.

“It looks as if the Jewish priesthood continued in the West by people called Cohen, and in same way it was continued by the priestly clan of the Lemba.

“They have a common ancestor who geneticists say lived about 3,000 years ago somewhere in north Arabia, which is the time of Moses and Aaron when the Jewish priesthood started.”

Prof Parfitt is a world-renowned expert, having spent 20 years researching the Lemba, and living with them for six months.

The Lemba have a sacred prayer language which is a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic, pointing to their roots in Israel and Yemen.

Despite their ties to Judaism, many of the Lemba in Zimbabwe are Christians, while some are Muslims.

“Christianity is my religion, and Judaism is my culture,” explains Perez Hamandishe, a pastor and member of parliament from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Despite their centuries-old traditions, some younger Lemba are taking a more liberal view.

“In the old days you didn’t marry a non-Lemba, but these days we interact with others,” says Alex Makotore, son of the late Chief Mposi from the Lemba “headquarters” in Mberengwa.

“I feel special in my heart but not in front of others such that I’m separated from them. Culture is dynamic.”

The oral traditions of the Lemba say that the ngoma lungundu is the Biblical wooden Ark made by Moses, and that centuries ago a small group of men began a long journey carrying it from Yemen to southern Africa.

The object went missing during the 1970s and was eventually rediscovered in Harare in 2007 by Prof Parfitt.

“Many people say that the story is far-fetched, but the oral traditions of the Lemba have been backed up by science,” he says.

Carbon dating shows the ngoma to be nearly 700 years old – pretty ancient, if not as old as Bible stories would suggest.

But Prof Parfitt says this is because the ngoma was used in battles, and would explode and be rebuilt.

The ngoma now on display was a replica, he says, possibly built from the remains of the original.

“So it’s the closest descendant of the Ark that we know of,” Prof Parfitt says.

Large crowds came to see the unveiling of the ngoma and to attend lectures on the identity of the Lemba.

For David Maramwidze, an elder in his village, the discovery of the ngoma has been a defining moment.

“Hearing from those professors in Harare and seeing the ngoma makes it clear that we are a great people and I’m very proud,” he says.

“I heard about it all my life and it was hard for me to believe, because I had no idea of what it really is.

“I’m still seeing the picture of the ngoma in my mind and it will never come out from my brain. Now we want it to be given back to the Lemba people.”

Here’s more on Jewish genes and the Lemba.

7:40PM: PMW has more on the PA’s naming of a square after terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who was part of a group who hijacked a bus and murdered 37 civilians in 1978

5:20PM: Being Jewish and Australian, I am ashamed of these numbskulls.

A petition signed by 35 distinguished Australian Jews rejecting the automatic right of Jews from anywhere in the world to settle in Israel is printed below. Under the racist “law of return”, Jews do not need to have any connection with Israel to obtain citizenship. Signatories include ethicist Peter Singer, feminist campaigner Eva Cox, author and journalist Antony Loewenstein and writer Sara Dowse.

We are Jews from Australia, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return”. While this law may seem intended to enable a Jewish homeland, we submit that it is in fact a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians.

Today there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land — a right recognised and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish, thereby potentially taking the place of Palestinians who would dearly love to return to their ancestral lands.

We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed.

Tellingly enough, even according to UNRWA, there are nowhere near 7 million palestinian refugees (try 4.7 million). And even that figure is grossly exaggerated considering the unprecedented width of their definition of a “palestinian refugee”, which includes “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948″ (they could have been temporary residents in those years only), as well as descendants.

3:58PM: Abdullah Iyad Barghouti, one of the Hamasholes whose release has been demanded in return for Gilad Shalit, has demonstrated why he should never be released.

Unless it’s via a swamp filled with crocodiles, or from a plane without a parachute.

Abdullah Iyad Barghouti, who has been mentioned as one of the Hamas  officials currently jailed in Israel  that the organization demands in return for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, does not believe he will be freed in the near future, and blames Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  for sabotaging the deal.

“There is no way the deal will be executed soon, Netanyahu does not want to execute the deal, he is busy with many other things,” Barghouti said Sunday afternoon at a hearing on the conditions of his imprisonment at the Nazareth District Court. The hearing addressed whether or not Barghouti should remain in confinement.

After he told the court that there is “no way” he believes in the Israeli court system, he responded to questions by reporters – in fluent Hebrew. He stated that if he were to be released, he would continue to “fight the occupation.” When asked if he was referring only to the occupation in Gaza or in other places, such as Nazareth, he said: “The occupation in all of Palestine”.

1:55PM: When he’s not denying anti-Semitism is flourishing in his country, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is denying Jewish history.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday continued his assault on Israel, according to Saudi paper Al Wattan, which quoted him as saying that that al Aksa Mosque, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb “were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites.”

Speaking to Palestinian journalists, Erdogan reportedly said “Palestine [was] always at the top of Turkey’s priorities.” He expressed his support for the renewal of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Donning a cloak of pan-Islamic identity, Erdogan told Al Wattan that he “loves my brothers in Fatah and my brothers in Hamas to the same degree, because they are my Muslim brothers and I cannot distinguish between them.”

Erdogan’s sticking of his nose in the recent Palestinian rancor over Israel’s declaration that the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb will be part of a list of sites slated for preservation is the latest in a seemingly calculated series of moves based on Turkey’s reassessment of a power-shift occurring in the Middle East. It was not clear why he mentioned the mosque, as Israel never declared it part of the list.

Then again, he also denies Turkish history.

6:20AM: Darwin Awards candidate of the day:

A Palestinian moves a burning tyre during clashes with Israeli border police in the village of Issawiya in East Jerusalem March 6, 2010. Dozens of people were injured in clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces in Jerusalem and the West Bank on Friday, as tension over land and holy sites mounted ahead of a relaunch of U.S.-mediated peace negotiations (Reuters).

My mum always taught me to watch what I am doing when handling fire.

6:10AM: According to Israeli Druze politician Ayoob Kara, an Israeli strike on Iran may be supported by some of Israel’s other enemies.

Deputy Minister for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee, MK Ayoob Kara (Likud), said Israel had received messages from radical Muslim states with which it does not have diplomatic relations saying they would back any Israeli or US move against Iran.

“These are positive, secretive messages which say that they will support any move,” Kara said at a cultural event in Beersheba Saturday. “They have conveyed clear messages that they are concerned about the Iranian problem.”

He refused to name the states involved, but said there was a “wall to wall coalition” of Muslim nations against the Islamic Republic.

5:50AM: According to an internal Foreign Ministry report distributed to Israeli diplomatic missions abroad, the US administration has adopted positions closer to those of the palestinians.

The classified report claims that in the preparatory discussions for the Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks the Obama administration adopted positions that are closer to Palestinian demands.

“The recent American statements point to the adoption of wording in line, even if partially and cautiously, with Palestinian demands in regard to the framework and structure of negotiations,” the report stated. “Still, the [U.S.] administration is making sure to avoid commenting on its position on core issues.”

—-

The report released recently by the Foreign Ministry’s center for political research, which focuses on strategic foreign policy, is less optimistic about the chances for progress in the next round of peace talks. The document was delivered to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and to Israeli diplomatic missions abroad several days ago.

According to the report Washington is aware of the domestic political problems faced separately by both Netanyahu and Abbas and has decided to concentrate on achieving the limited goal of restarting the negotiations. The peace talks will not be at the top of the Obama administration’s agenda, the report claims.

“In our assessment the administration will focus in the coming year on domestic issues that are expected to determine the results of the Congressional elections,” the report’s authors wrote. “As such, and due to the difficulties to date in achieving significant gains in the peace process we can assume that the administration’s focus on this issue will be limited and will predominantly remain in the hands of Mitchell’s teams.”

According to the report, Washington can be expected to portray the resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian talks as a domestic and international achievement, in the hope of creating an atmosphere that is conducive to direct negotiations between the parties on the core issues.

The authors of the report also predict that the administration will avoid taking any position that suggests disagreement with Israel, because of the support that Israel enjoys among both parties in Congress.

******************************************************************************************

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

******************************************************************************************

A senior source in Netanyahu’s entourage said the Israeli leader urged Medvedev not to legitimize Hamas. “We are not pleased with your relations with Hamas,” he quoted Netanyahu as telling Medvedev. “But since they exist, we can relay messages on humanitarian issues. Tell Hamas they won’t get a better offer from us on the [Shalit] deal.”

Meanwhile, Medvedev reportedly promised that Russia will hold off on delivering the advanced S-300 air defense system to Iran. For now.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

6:35PM: Ma’an News reports:

A Palestinian company is planning to bring women-only taxis – a phenomenon already popular in Beirut and elsewhere – to the conservative West Bank city of Hebron.

Hazem At-Takrawi, the director of the Ishraqat training and development firm, said on Monday that his company is already training women to drive the female-only cabs. As in Beirut, the cars would be pink, he told anchor Adel Eghraieb on the television show “On the Table.”

Asked whether Hebron and Palestinians in general would accept the idea, At-Takrawi said the company already commissioned a survey that found that 95% of Palestinians would accept the new cabs.

In addition, he said the program will create jobs, claiming that more than 100 women, mainly university graduates, already applied for positions as cabbies. At-Takrawi said that if the idea succeeds in Hebron, he will expand the business to other West Bank cities.

Women-only taxis are already on the streets in Beirut, Dubai, Cairo, and Tehran.

Whatever you say about the idea, at least the women are allowed to drive.

Meanwhile, the report prompted this telling comment from a Ma’an reader.

3 ) Aurora / Italy
16/02/2010 12:46
I think it’s a good idea women drive and use taxis without men. think about the bad smell of the man and their bad behaviour, or think about women’s security: everybody knows that inside are there only women (also low control at check point?).

11:50AM: According to The Daily Telegraph, British government sources said the three Irish passport-holders accused of taking part in Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s assassination were most likely Mossad agents carrying false documentation.

6:18AM: Here’s more on the killing of Hamas arch terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai by a squad carrying European passports.

Meanwhile, Ynet’s security affairs analyst Ron Ben-Yishai has written this analysis.

6:10AM: According to a local Fatah source cited by Al-Jazeera, there has recently been an increase in the number of former Fatah members who have joined Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups in Gaza, in order to get revenge on Hamas.

No word yet on any increase in the number of former Fatah members who have joined groups supporting Israeli-palestinian coexistence.

• 5,664,000 Jews (75.4%)
• 1,526,000 Arabs (20.3%)
• 319,000 (4.3%) other

Other Israeli population facts:

• 30% of the population is under the age of 14 and 9.7% is over the age of 65, compared to 17% and 15% respectively in most other Western countries.
• Average Jewish family size increased since 2008, from 2.8 children per household to 2.96.
• Average Muslim family size dropped since 2008, from 3.97 children per household to 3.84.
• There are 979 men for every 1000 women

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:05PM: Terrorists in Gaza have fired at least one Grad rocket into the southern Israeli town of Netivot.

Although the Color Red early warning system did not go off – giving residents no warning – no one was hurt nor was there any damage.

Which I guess means the attack never happened according to the international community.

4:56PM: According to Ma’an News, Hamas has rejected Israel’s latest terms for a terrorists-for-Gilad Shalit exchange, but has told the German mediator they were willing to continue talks.

4:52PM: Photo of the day:

Ho ho ho…KABOOM!

4:50PM: From the Department of Mistakes That Will Get You Killed:

The Iranian football federation sent its Israeli counterpart a new year’s greeting on Thursday, Army Radio reported, in what a Tehran official described as a mistake.

Mohammad Ali Ardebili, director of foreign relations for the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, told Army Radio that he had not intended to send the missive to the Israel Football Association.

“It is a greeting sent to every country in the world,” Ardebili said. He quickly then inquired: “Are you talking from Israel? I can’t speak with you. It’s a mistake, it’s a mistake.”

The greeting was received in Israel by the head of the Israel Football Association’s legal department, Amir Navon.

“He came into my office asking me if I thought it was a mistake,” said body spokesman Gil Levanoni. “So I told him that I didn’t know, but that we should send in a reply.”

Levanoni and Navon said they replied to the greeting with a “happy new year to all the good people of Iran,” and said: “We also added a wink.”

“We wrote them that we hoped that they would have a happy soccer year,” Levanoni added.

4:15PM: Regular readers know I refer to the so-called prop-palestinian “activists” as terror enablers, since they either directly enable terror by acting as human shields, otherwise undermining Israel’s security, or at the very least by emboldening the terrorists.

What better proof of this last aspect can there be than this comment by Head Hamashole Ismail Haniyeh?

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Thursday told activists gathered on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides of the Gaza Strip border that residents of the besieged territory had not given up hope and would never stop fighting for a state with Jerusalem as its capital.

“Because of international solidarity and your support, we have become stronger,” Haniyeh declared. “The Palestinian nation will never give up its national aspirations or its right to Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine and the Islamic people.”

Meanwhile, it should be noted that these “activists” included Israeli Arabs and even members of the Knesset.

Haniyeh spoke to the 300 Israeli activists positioned at the Erez crossing via Israeli Arab MK Taleb A-Sana’s mobile phone. On the Gazan side of the border, nearly 100 international activists joined about 500 Palestinians, chanting and carrying signs denouncing the blockade.

During the rally, MK Jamal Zahalka threw harsh criticism at Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who he said enjoys “classical music and killing children in Gaza.

I fully agree with Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch:

Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch turned to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz and asked him to file charges against MK El-Sana for supporting a terror organization.

“After the minister learned of the phone call in which he broadcast the evil words of the Hamas leader, he sent an urgent letter to Mazuz, demanding that he prosecute him for supporting a terror organization,” an official at Aharonovitch’s office said.

“We cannot accept a situation in which every person, let alone a Knesset member in the State of Israel, serves as a pipeline for a terror organization whose only goal is to destroy the State of Israel. There is a limit to cynicism.

“Enforcing the law is the internal security minister’s supreme value, and we view this as a blatant offense. Even the bill for the phone the call was made on is paid by the State of Israel.”

11:15AM: Meet an African Israeli hero.

The orphaned son of an Israeli man and a Kenyan woman was saved by Israel and is returning the favor

Today, Cpl. Arusi Madalya speaks Hebrew fluently and is a combat soldier in the Givati Brigade. But his life was not always so typically Israeli. Arusi grew up in Kenya, became an orphan after a tragic car accident killed both his parents, and was left alone with no family and no means of support.

The inspiring story of how he came to be the man he is today begins in the port city of Mombassa, Kenya, which he describes as a mixture of sunshine and games. His father, the late Moshe Madalya, left Israel in order to open a business in the tourist city. He opened a restaurant and it was while looking for a chef for the restaurant that he met Josephine Malasi, a local woman. After dating for five years, the two of them got married and brought Arusi into the world. “My mother was Christian, and as a child I celebrated the Christian holidays and the Kenyan national holidays even though they gave me a Brit Milah (Jewish circumcision),” he says. “I have three siblings, one sister from my mother’s previous marriage and two Israeli brothers from my father’s previous marriage, but they are not in touch with me.”

“At home I spoke English and in school I learned Swahili, and because I grew up around many tourists I also know a bit of German and French,” Arusi says. “My parents worked together in the restaurant my father opened, and they also worked as cooks in a hotel in the city.” Despite his father’s past, Arusi did not hear a lot of stories about Israel. “Every time they would talk about Israel in the History classes they would say that I was ‘the son of someone who came from the Holy Land’ and they would ask me questions about Israel but I couldn’t answer. I remember that one evening I was watching CNN with my parents and they showed the Western Wall. My father told me that he too had been a soldier in the Paratroopers’ Brigade and that in the Six Day War he was in the first squadron that entered Jerusalem,“ Arusi remembers.

“I already had a feeling that something bad had happened”

One year, when the academic year was coming to a close, Arusi’s school held a Parents’ Day. All of the parents were supposed to arrive for meetings with the teachers. “I was 16 years old,” Arusi recalls. “At that time my father was working in the hotel restaurant and had just opened an additional restaurant. In addition, my father’s business manager stole the money he had set aside for the business. He had a lot on his mind at that time.”

Arusi, who at the time did not know about his father’s problems, waited for his parents at the school. Arusi waited a while until his father’s friends came to the school to get him. “I was angry that neither of them had arrived. My father’s friends came, took me aside and told me that they wanted to talk to me about my mother and my father. I already had a feeling that something bad had happened,” Arusi recalls. His father’s friends had come to tell him that on their way to the school, his parent’s car was hit by a truck. They took Arusi and even from far away he could already see the crash site. “When we stopped there, my heart also stopped,” Arusi remembers. “I tried to convince myself that we just happened to stop by the side of the road, and the entire time I kept telling myself ‘please don’t tell me that that’s them’. They took me aside, told me what had happened and I fainted. Even when I woke up and arrived home I didn’t believe it and I waited to see my parents but the house was empty.”

After his parents’ death, Arusi was all alone. The Israeli children from his father’s previous marriage did not want any connection with him, and his mother’s family lived hundreds of kilometers away from Mombassa with no money to help him. He had no choice. Arusi left his studies and began working to survive. “In the beginning I worked a lot and earned very little money,” he remembers. “I always loved to dance and after I saw a movie about street dancing, a friend and I had the idea to form a break-dance group called ‘Nice and Slow’. We began performing in clubs all throughout Kenya and it was a big hit. That’s how I met my girlfriend Jamima. I moved in with her family and returned to school to finish high school.”

After he began getting used to his new life, Arusi received a phone call from the Israeli Embassy in Kenya. “They called so that I would return my father’s passport,” Arusi says. “They also told me that in my father’s will, he requested that the State of Israel would help me if I were ever to be left alone. Apparently when I was 18 years old they had tried to move me to Israel but at the time it was not possible, and since then the procedure had changed. In order to be Israeli, they told me that I would have to give up my Kenyan citizenship, but in fact I did not even have a Kenyan passport. I arrived at the Embassy and received an Israeli passport. I was so excited, in Kenya a passport is an extremely rare thing. I had to leave Kenya within 24 hours. I took a small bag with me and that was it, because they told me I would be taken care of once I arrived in Israel.”

A surprising welcome

Arusi’s arrival in the Holy Land was not easy. Despite the fact that he had with him a letter from the Embassy, when he landed and they saw that he had an Israeli passport with no previous signatures, the police arrested him. Furthermore, because he did not know how to speak Hebrew, it was very hard for him to try to explain himself. Once the misunderstanding was solved, Arusi met his sister Jaqueline from his mother’s previous marriage, who lives in Israel with her daughter Stav and works in the Kenyan Embassy in Israel. “I lived with her for a little bit of time in Tel Aviv,” Arusi says. “After about a month I received a phone call telling me to go to Jerusalem, and from there I would go to live on a kibbutz and study in a Hebrew course. I lived and learned in Kibbutz Na’an for six months, after which I waited a year to enlist.”

Once he knew Hebrew and was familiar with the country from various trips, Arusi enlisted. Before he even really knew the place he would put his life in danger for, he already knew he would enlist out of obligation. But since that time, the picture has changed. “I always saw soldiers in the movies and I wanted to be one, to acquire the skills and the discipline that soldiers have. But the more time I spent in Israel, the more I also wanted to contribute as much as possible to the country that saved me,” Arusi says.

Arusi’s military service began in the Mihve Alon training base. There he understood that he really wanted to be in a combat unit. The General Staff Reconnaissance Unit especially appealed to him. “I was good and I tried twice to be accepted to go to tryouts, I passed the tests that day but my Hebrew wasn’t good enough,” Arusi explains. “In the end I got to the Paratroopers’ Brigade, where my father served. There, too, I didn’t give up and I got to the Maglan elite unit.” After a year and a half, Arusi left the Maglan Unit because of disciplinary issues and he was brought in for an interview with the previous Givati Brigade Tzabar Battalion Commander, Lt. Col. Oren Zini. “In that discussion it was decided that I would try being in his battalion for two months. I arrived to the support squadron and fell in love on the spot. Everyone accepted me so warmly,” Arusi says.

“The difference between Maglan and Givati was significant. In the elite forces it was really competitive, and here in the battalion it’s different, everyone is family and from the moment I arrived I haven’t once looked back. When I had financial problems at home, everyone pitched in here to help me. Here we love one another unconditionally. I am happy here with my friends, and a bonded unit like this is impossible to stop. The brothers from my father’s side showed me that they didn’t want any connection with me, and here I found the family I was searching for. Here it’s the real thing.”

When he thinks about the beginning of his path, he remembers how hard it was. “After every tough week or difficult advanced training, I saw that everyone around me would call home to their family or friends and I didn’t have that. I had a phone but it was used mainly to get incoming calls from the army,” Arusi tells. “I know that if my mother and father could see me they would be very proud of me. My father especially would have gone crazy with excitement if he could have seen me in uniform, he would have picked me up in the air from all the excitement, and my mother would have worried about me but would have been supportive. I know that I would have brought them a lot of respect.”

As a son of two chefs, the homesickness for his mother’s Kenyan food grew. “My mother would cook more traditional food and my father loved to make Italian food,” he tells. The food Arusi misses the most is Ugali, a dish made with corn flour, which his mother used to prepare. “Kitchens always remind me of my parents, and that is where I feel comfortable. Whenever it was my turn to work in the military kitchen everyone wanted me to stay there. When I went to the homes of Ethiopian friends from my platoon, I got to know the dish Anjara. My adopted family in Kfar Aza, where I now live, introduced me to the deliciousness of Jahnun. My goal now is to bring Ugali to my squadron.”

And Arusi’s aspirations don’t stop there. In the future he wants to go become an officer and continue to serve in the squadron. If that will not be possible he wants to join the Israel Security Agency or the Special Police Unit. His main desire is to give of himself to the country that took care of him when he was alone. Soon Arusi will begin the conversion process. Next year Arusi will fly to visit his family in his birthplace, temporarily leaving behind his home in Kfar Aza, his adopted family and the girlfriend he met during his Hebrew course. In conclusion, Arusi says: “I am constantly thinking about what my parents would say if they could see me at different stages in my life, but I’m sure they are always looking down on me from above.”

6:02AM: Terror enabler George Galloway loses his (already short) temper with an Al Jizz reporter.

Here’s hoping he bursts a blood vessel in that ugly noggin of his.

Good.

Meanwhile, Hamas has rejected suggestions that they have rejected Israel’s latest offer. But they haven’t denied threatening to kidnap more soldiers.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:10PM: Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon gets right to the facts.

The recent statements by the European Union’s new foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton criticizing Israel have once again brought international attention to Jerusalem and the settlements. However, little appears to be truly understood about Israel’s rights to what are generally called the “occupied territories” but what really are “disputed territories.”

That’s because the land now known as the West Bank cannot be considered “occupied” in the legal sense of the word as it had not attained recognized sovereignty before Israel’s conquest. Contrary to some beliefs there has never been a Palestinian state, and no other nation has ever established Jerusalem as its capital despite it being under Islamic control for hundreds of years.

The name “West Bank” was first used in 1950 by the Jordanians when they annexed the land to differentiate it from the rest of the country, which is on the east bank of the river Jordan. The boundaries of this territory were set only one year before during the armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan that ended the war that began in 1948 when five Arab armies invaded the nascent Jewish State. It was at Jordan’s insistence that the 1949 armistice line became not a recognized international border but only a line separating armies. The Armistice Agreement specifically stated: “No provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims, and positions of either Party hereto in the peaceful settlement of the Palestine questions, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.” (Italics added.) This boundary became the famous “Green Line,” so named because the military officials during the armistice talks used a green pen to draw the line on the map.

After the Six Day War, when once again Arab armies sought to destroy Israel and the Jewish state subsequently captured the West Bank and other territory, the United Nations sought to create an enduring solution to the conflict. U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 is probably one of the most misunderstood documents in the international arena. While many, especially the Palestinians, push the idea that the document demands that Israel return everything captured over the Green Line, nothing could be further from the truth. The resolution calls for “peace within secure and recognized boundaries,” but nowhere does it mention where those boundaries should be.

It is best to understand the intentions of the drafters of the resolution before considering other interpretations. Eugene V. Rostow, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in 1967 and a drafter of the resolution, stated in 1990: “Security Council Resolution 242 and (subsequent U.N. Security Council Resolution) 338… rest on two principles, Israel may administer the territory until its Arab neighbors make peace; and when peace is made, Israel should withdraw to “secure and recognized borders,” which need not be the same as the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 194.”

Lord Caradon, the British U.N. Ambassador at the time and the resolution’s main drafter who introduced it to the Council, said in 1974 unequivocally that, “It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial.”

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. at the time, former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, made the issue even clearer when he stated in 1973 that, “the resolution speaks of withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of withdrawal.” This would encompass “less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territory, inasmuch as Israel’s prior frontiers had proven to be notably insecure.”

Even the Soviet delegate to the U.N., Vasily Kuznetsov, who fought against the final text, conceded that the resolution gave Israel the right to “withdraw its forces only to those lines it considers appropriate.”

After the war in 1967, when Jews started returning to their historic heartland in the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria, as the territory had been known around the world for 2,000 years until the Jordanians renamed it, the issue of settlements arose. However, Rostow found no legal impediment to Jewish settlement in these territories. He maintained that the original British Mandate of Palestine still applies to the West Bank. He said “the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan River, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors.” There is no internationally binding document pertaining to this territory that has nullified this right of Jewish settlement since.

And yet, there is this perception that Israel is occupying stolen land and that the Palestinians are the only party with national, legal and historic rights to it. Not only is this morally and factually incorrect, but the more this narrative is being accepted, the less likely the Palestinians feel the need to come to the negotiating table. Statements like those of Lady Ashton’s are not only incorrect; they push a negotiated solution further away.

10:18PM: Hamas has claimed it uncovered a plot by Israel to gather information about the location of Gilad Shalit, imvolving former security officers belonging to Fatah.

A senior Hamas official said that Israel had recruited a number of officers who used to serve in the Fatah-dominated security forces before the Islamist movement seized control of the entire Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007.

Abu Abdullah, who serves with Hamas’s Internal Security Service, said that the officers had been entrusted with the mission of locating the place where Schalit was being held by his captors.

“The Shabak is very interested in obtaining any information about the whereabouts of Schalit through various methods,” Abu Abdullah said, referring to Israel’s Security Agency (Shin Bet). “One of these methods was the last war [Operation Cast Lead], whose goal was to break Hamas and obtain information about the location of Schalit to rescue him.”

The Hamas security official revealed that his men arrested “a number of collaborators” who had rented an apartment and vehicles in the eastern area of the Gaza Strip.

He claimed that the “collaborators” were planning to kidnap a senior member of Hamas’s armed wing, Izaddin al-Kassam, and hand him over to Israel for interrogation about the location of Schalit.

Abu Abdullah did not name the top operative who was supposed to be abducted. However, he told a Hamas-affiliated Web site that his men managed to foil the alleged scheme in the last minute.

He said that the alleged Israeli operation was similar to an earlier incident where undercover IDF soldiers are said to have detained another senior Hamas operative, Muhawesh al-Qadi, from the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip more than a year ago.

Abu Abdullah reiterated Hamas charges that former security officers belonging to Fatah were working with the IDF and other Israeli security branches to undermine the movement and free Schalit. He also claimed that these “collaborators” had also provided the Israelis with information about Hamas men who fired rockets into Israel.

4:52PM: Ma’an News reports:

The UN relief agency UNRWA said on Tuesday that Gaza had been “bombed back, not to the Stone Age, but to the mud age,” because the agency was reduced to building houses out of mud due to Israel’s ban on construction materials entering the Strip.

Little known historical fact: During the Mud Age, man was apparently able to produce and fire rockets.

6:55AM: Israeli magician Hezi Dayan is attempting to break David Blaine’s 58-hour world record for remaining inside an ice cell, by remaining inside for 64 hours.

6:05AM: Fatah Central Committee member Sultan Abul Enein stated the blast in Beirut that killed two Hamas members was an accident.

He said in an interview with Voice of Palestine radio that the explosion resulted from a “misuse of arms,” and had no security or political significance.

He did not say on what basis he made these assertions. Abul Enein served as one of Fatah’s senior leaders in Lebanon for years before moving to the West Bank in August.

The two Hamas members were buried on Tuesday. Hamas has not publicly accused anyone of carrying out the apparent bombing.

Speaking at the funeral on Monday, Hamas’ top leader in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan declined to speculate on who was responsible.

Also on Monday Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported that the blast had been caused by 15 kilograms of TNT.

My money’s still on premature explodation, although I’m now beginning to think Fatah may have had a hand in it.

6:00AM: Hassan Nasrallah speaks of his respect for the US and desire for peace once Israel withdraws from the northern part of the village of Ghajar.

5:55AM: Lebanese Druze leader Walid “Mr Burns” Jumblatt yesterday urged Israeli Druze not to serve in the IDF.

Speaking to Nazareth-based Radio A-Shams, Jumblatt said that all Druze are Arabs who follow the Druze religion, and thus ties between Druze in different countries and between Druze and other Arabs were only natural.

The Druze leader, who was visiting Cyprus, met recently with a delegation of Israeli Druze dignitaries led by MK Said Naffaa (Balad) and clergymen from Mount Carmel and the Galilee. He said his ties with Israeli Druze began in Amman in 2001 and have been developing ever since.

Jumblatt noted that there was an increasing awareness of such ties among young Druze in Israel and said that many of them were already refusing to join the military. “The fact that the number of Druze avoiding military service has risen from 5 percent to almost 60 percent is proof enough of the importance of this connection,” he said.

The percentage of Druze that join the military has long been contested by both sides of the ideological debate. At a conference in the Druze village of Julis attended by then-prime minister Ehud Olmert, Dr. Yussuf Hassan of Tel Aviv University presented a survey stating that 94 percent of Israeli Druze see Israeliness as an important part of their identity. IDF Col. Ramez a-Din told the conference that 83 percent of young Druze join the military, compared to only 72 percent of Jewish youths.

Jumblatt rejected criticism that he was intervening in another community’s internal affairs. “There were voices that I can only describe as primitive who attacked our initiative, but we’ve proven that maintaining this relationship strengthens the Arab Palestinian identity of community members in Israel, and especially the young,” he said. “The rising numbers of conscientious objectors show the Druze will no longer be border guards for the State of Israel.”

No word yet on who was behind the blast, or whether it was merely a case of premature explodation. But whatever the cause, what is certain is it will be blamed on the Joooooooooos.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:30PM: An 18-year-old young Israeli woman suffered second degree burns earlier today after palestinian terrorists hurled a firebomb at the bus in which she was riding south of Hebron.

6:36PM: One year on, and Hamas are just raring to go.

6:02PM: Scenes from a Hamas protest.

4:26PM: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has stated there is still no deal with Hamas to free Gilad Shalit, and linked yesterday’s killing of the three terrorists behind last week’s shooting death of Meir Avshalom Hai to the prisoner swap negotiations.

“One of the cell terrorist cell members who were killed had been released from Israeli prison. This is precisely the consideration standing against the Shalit deal.”

“The issue of our citizens’ security, particularly in the West Bank, is a cardinal consideration in the negotiations for Shalit’s release. We want our prisoners returned, but at the same time we must minimize the risk to our citizens.”

“We will not agree to expose our citizens to terror.”

1:40PM: The two soldiers involved in this morning’s shooting were from the IDF’s Beduin Trackers Unit.

1:32PM: And it gets worse. The wounded soldier died shortly after being shot by his comrade.

12:30PM: It now looks like the Beer Sheva Mall shooting was perpetrated by an IDF soldier. Against another IDF soldier.

Oy vey.

12:28PM: Photo of the day:

Lebanese Shiite Muslim women look at a poster errected in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh on December 18 on the occasion of Ashura. At least two people were killed late Saturday in a blast that shook Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut, a security official said. (AFP/File/Mahmoud Zayat)

Is it just me, or do you get the feeling peace is not foremost on their mind?

12:22PM: Senior Obama officials reportedly asked Israeli National Security Adviser Uzi Arad to explain the IDF raid in Nablus that resulted in us liquidating the three terrorists who murdered an Israeli father-of-seven.

I would have thought it was self-explanatory.

Meanwhile, police today confirmed, after ballistics analysis, that one of the weapons confiscated by IDF troops during the operation had been used to shoot Rabbi Hai.

12:02PM: According to Channel 2, the shooting may have been the result of quarrel between two people, and not a terror attack.

12:00PM: BREAKING NEWS: Gunshots have been heard in the food court of the Beer Sheva mall (I used to eat their regularly when I first emigrated to Israel – ed.) One person reported seriously wounded.

We are now waiting for Hamas to respond.Senior Hamasholes are expected to meet within a few days to discuss the proposal, and a deal is likely to take several more days or even weeks. Assuming there is a deal at all. On one hand, a number of senior Hamasholes reportedly said they want to advance the negotiations and would seriously consider Israel’s proposal, in part due to heavy pressure exerted by families of palestinian prisoners. On the other hand, our demand to deport dozens of prisoners indefinitely, as well as our refusal to release Marwan Barghouti, Ahmed Sadat, and jailed Israeli Arabs, are “too much” for Hamas to accept.

[poll id="5"]

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:15PM: Now there are reports that Hamas has agreed to the deportation of 123 palestinian terrorists from the West Bank to a number of destinations.

9:02PM: So long, Captain.

8:42PM: Separated at Birth? A palestinian man dressed as Santa, and deceased comedian Richard Pryor.

8:35PM: Farfur the mouse, supposedly martyred, has been spotted.

Again.

And this time, he’s hanging out with one of the good guys.

A Palestinian boy poses for a picture with people wearing elephant, mouse and Santa Claus costumes during a children Christmas parade near the Church of the Nativity, the site revered as the birthplace of Jesus, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem December 23, 2009. Christian visitors coming to Bethlehem this week to celebrate the birth of Christ will encounter a concrete wall with watchtowers, built by Israel between nearby Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity.

3:36PM: Senior Hamashole Mahmoud “Wart” Zahar has said the German mediator met with his negotiating team and relayed Israel’s latest proposal on a prisoner/terrorist exchange deal to secure the release of Gilad Shalit. Hamas will study the offer and issue its response within several days.

But according to Ynet, senior Hamasholes stated Israel’s response was “unacceptable.”

12:38PM: Fossilized Elder of Moron Jimmy Carter wants everyone to know that his sudden apology to US Jews for any contribution he may have had to Israel’s negative image has absolutely nothing to do with his grandson’s decision to run for the Georgia state senate.

Jimmy Carter is asking the Jewish community for forgiveness — and insists it’s not simply because his grandson has decided to launch a political career with a run for the Georgia state Senate.

Jason Carter, 34, an Atlanta-area lawyer, is considering a run to fill a seat covering suburban DeKalb County should the incumbent, David Adelman, win confirmation as President Obama’s designated ambassador to Singapore.

The seat, which is university heavy — Emory, among others, is situated there — also has a substantial Jewish community.

The senior Carter outraged Jewish leaders with his book “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid,” and they strongly criticized the former U.S. president for what appeared to be his likening of Israel’s settlement practices to apartheid and seeming to place the brunt of the blame for a lack of peace on Israel.

On the subsequent book tour, Carter further enraged many Jews by intimating that the pro-Israel lobby inhibited an evenhanded U.S. policy.

Such bad blood could potentially translate into problems for Carter’s grandson as he considers launching a political career.

But in an interview with JTA, Carter insisted that ethnic electoral considerations were not reason enough to reach out to the Jewish community, although he did not outright deny that it was a factor.

“Jason has a district, the number of Jewish voters in it is only 2 percent,” he said, chuckling.

In a statement issued through his campaign manager, the younger Carter said the statement was not connected to his campaign.

“While I was very happy to see my grandfather’s letter, it was completely unrelated to my campaign. The letter is a product of discussions with some of his friends in the Jewish community that have been going on for a long time.  I, like many others, see this as a great step towards reconciliation,” Jason Carter said in the statement.

—-

It seemed clear, however, that Jason Carter saw the apology, issued earlier this month through JTA, as a means of outreach. The younger Carter has been trying for days to reach Liane Levetan, a former state senator and CEO of DeKalb County, and as soon as they connected Tuesday, he directed her to the JTA Web site to read the letter.

“I wanted to let Jason know that I really and truly understand his position that he loves his grandfather, but you can love someone and not agree with their points of view and actions in certain areas, and Israel is my area,” Levetan told JTA in an interview after her conversation with the younger Carter.

Looks like Jimmy has honed his lying skills while spending all of that time with his Hamas friends.

11:42AM: The worms are licking their chops with the death of another Hamashole on a “Jihad mission.”

5:54AM: Introducing the video clip to the new palestinian hit song “Check out our weapons, including our new anti-aircraft gun, with which we will kill Jews.” Number 1 with a bullet.

Or have they? Ha’aretz reported that Israel has given a German mediator its response to Hamas. The question is: what was the response? Yes, no, or still thinking about it?

Meanwhile, I will keep my poll active to gauge your opinion on the matter.

[poll id="5"]

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

9:42PM: Quote of the day:

“I’m faced with two vital principles: the desire to redeem captives and the desire to defend Israeli citizens from future attacks.”

“I have listened with great attentiveness to your personal and difficult stories, and have noted all the important points you have raised.”

- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, after meeting with representatives of the Almagor terror victims organization, which opposes any prisoner swap deal.

5:22PM: Reuters has published a number of photos, such as the following, showing a palestinian boy who lost his leg during Operation Cast Lead.

Moathe Abu Rabeeh (R), a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who lost his leg during the three-week offensive Israel launched last year, attends a physiotherapy session at al-Salama Association in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip December 22, 2009. December 27 marks one year since the start of a three-week offensive Israel launched in Gaza during which more than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed. Israel launched the offensive with the declared aim of stopping Palestinian rocket fire on southern Israel (Reuters)

Leaving aside the accuracy of the figure of 1,400 palestinians killed (which seems to be based on a B’Tselem estimate, even though the IDF found 1166 were killed, including  709 “terror operatives”), why are we also not seeing from Reuters photos of crippled palestinians such as this man?

4:35PM: The Guardian has admitted it erred in using the headline “Israel admits harvesting Palestinian organs” on the story about an admission by the former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute that organs were harvested from bodies without permission from the families of the deceased, since “That headline did not match the article, which made clear that the organs were not taken only from Palestinians.”

3:42PM: A few months ago, Head Hamashole Khaled Meshaal claimed:

“Hamas does not aim to kill civilians. Hamas does not want to target the civilians. Hamas defends itself, but because it has simple abilities and its rockets are inaccurate in targeting, so it reaches the civilians, but we do not intend to do that.”

With that in mind, here’s an animated video released by Hamas.

3:12PM: It’s that time of the year again: Dishonest Reporter Award 2009

This year’s winners list is packed full of nutty goodness, including Ken Livingstone, Ha’aretz, The Guardian and Donald Bostrom.

9:24AM: Israel’s response to Hamas regarding the Gilad Shalit-terrorist exchange deal is reportedly “Yes, but…”

Israel gave a positive response to the general outline of the deal presented by the German mediator last week. The condition placed by Israel in its response refers to the names of “heavy prisoners” Israel demands are expelled to Gaza or abroad. According to Israel, these prisoners will not be allowed to return to the West Bank.

This stance, which is backed by a number of ministers and the head of the Shin Bet, stems from a serious concern that these “heavy prisoners” may revive Hamas’ terror infrastructure in the West Bank and resume the armed conflict as well as terror attacks against Israeli citizens, settlers and the Palestinian Authority.

The response which was transferred to the German mediator gives him enough pull to continue pushing to close the gaps between Hamas and Israel on the matter of expelling prisoners to Gaza.

Hamas is unlikely to drop out of negotiations, as it also has much interest in the execution of the deal. The moment of truth has yet to arrive, but can be expected in the near future.

6:06AM: Now for a change of pace: a joke about the Israeli rowing team told by an “old Jew.” (hat tip: Noah on Twitter)

6:04AM: A group of leading Zionist rabbis have drafted clear guidelines for prisoner swaps.

The guidelines in the document include the need to take future risk into consideration. Other principles include a call to engage in more moderate efforts in cases where abductees risk themselves needlessly, and a ban on releasing live detainees in exchange for bodies.

The rabbis who signed the document include Shlomo Aviner, Yaakov Ariel, Haim Druckman, and Dov Lior. The guidelines state that previous swaps completed by Israel were characterized by the “absence of clear criteria” and by a “dangerous preference for the welfare of the individual captive (or casualty) over the public’s wellbeing.”

The document includes a total of six brief clauses and is backed up with Jewish law sources for the various rulings.

The rabbis begin with an uncompromising rule of thumb: “Despite the importance of the mitzvah of prisoner redemption, any deal for the exchange of terrorist prisoners must be weighed with the public’s best interest in mind, as well as its effect on national security in the short and long term”.

“National security is affected, among other things, by the deterrence of enemies and their debilitation, as well as the willingness of soldiers to risk themselves knowing that a great effort will be made to release them if they are captured,” the rabbis say.

“A decision on a deal should consider intelligence agencies’ assessments of the future risk that it carries.”

Three basic principles

The rabbis call for a policy of negotiations based on three basic principles, each one derived from scenarios experienced by Israel over the years.

Hinting at the Tannenbaum deal, the document says that “the level of effort invested in releasing a man who unlawfully endangered himself should be lower.”

Regarding the return of corpses, such as deals made for IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, the document says that “despite the mitzvah of bringing a fallen soldier to burial in Israel, it is prohibited to release live terrorists in exchange for corpses”.

Regarding cases such as that of Shalit, the rabbis say that “a special effort must be invested in releasing security personnel who served the country”.

While it has been called “a make-or-break situation,” state officials have estimated that the deal will not be finalized in the near future.

Meanwhile, the parents of Gilad Shalit yesterday delivered a letter urging the Prime Minister to secure his release.

“We are appealing to you in a last-minute cry for help – please save our son, please save Gilad,” the Schalits wrote in the letter.

“Our hearts tell us that the negotiations have reached a point of no return… We are at a crossroads that has only two possible outcomes – the rescue of Gilad Schalit and his safe return home, or abandoning his fate to the hands of Hamas,” the letter read.

The parents of the captive soldier also pleaded with the prime minister not to “lay all the problems of the Middle East onto our son’s narrow shoulders.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:48PM: Jimmy Carter has apologized for stigmatizing Israel.

Former US President Jimmy Carter on Monday asked for the Jewish community’s forgiveness for any negative stigma he may have caused Israel over the years.

Carter, who is not a popular character in Israel, enraged the American Jewish community’s in the past with various statements made in his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”

In the book, carter blamed Israel for impeding the Middle East peace process via settlement construction, further claiming such policy will lead to apartheid.

The former president also accused Israel of interfering with US efforts to broker peace in the region.

“We must recognize Israel’s achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel.

“As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so,” he said.

“Al Het” refers to the Yom Kippur prayer asking God forgiveness for sins committed.

Head of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman welcomed Carter’s apology, saying it marked the beginning of reconciliation.

Call me uncharitable, but compared to the damage he has caused Israel – heck, the entire free world – I’d say his apology is peanuts.

11:36PM: Golani Infantry Brigade soldier Pvt. Mor Cohen, 19, has been shot and killed by a fellow soldier in a rare training accident, becoming the fifth soldier to die in such an accident this year.

11:35PM: Israel National News reports:

A Jewish youngster reported Monday evening that an Arab who dressed up as a Jew with a yarmulke and sidelocks tried to persuade him and an elderly lady into his car at hitchhiking post at the Tapuach Junction, north of Jerusalem.

10:28PM: Israel’s Channel 1 has reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu will agree to the Shalit swap deal.

8:52PM: Only in Israel: Photos like this taken at weddings

(via: Muqata)

8:40PM: Ahead of the impending decision on a Gilad Shalit-for-terrorists exchange deal, I would like to put the question to you, my readers.

[poll id="5"]

8:00PM: The mainstream media today had a field day reporting that Israel had admitted to harvesting the organs of dead palestinians, an apparent admission to the Swedish blood libel report we had previously denied so vigorously.

The source? This report from Israeli television featuring an admission that personnel at Israel’s Institute of Forensic Medicine harvested organs from Israelis and Palestinians without permission from the families.

While this is obviously troubling, the admission by no means confirms the Swedish blood libel report which claimed that Israel killed palestinians for their organs. In fact, if true, the people involved did not discriminate between dead Israelis and palestinians.

Honest Reporting has more, including some of the more dubious mainstream media treatment of this story.

5:42PM: The farce just got even farcier: Hamas has been helping British pro-palestinian lawyers bring war crimes prosecutions against Israeli officials in London.

5:05PM: Spot the difference:

1:20PM: Another day, another near-collision at Ben Gurion airport.

1:15PM: Wonder what Natalie Portman sounds like talking in Hebrew? Wonder no more!

6:06AM: The PA has postponed indefinitely the first-ever Miss Palestine pageant. And it’s all Israel’s fault. Obviously.

After a wave of criticism, the finale of the first-ever Miss Palestine pageant has been postponed indefinitely by the Palestinian Authority.

The Ramallah Governorate announced on Sunday, “According to the requirements of the public interest, we decided to freeze and delay indefinitely of the coronation of Miss Palestine 2009 that was scheduled to be held on 26/12/2009 in Ramallah.”

The statement said the decision was made out of respect for the anniversary of the onset of the Israeli war on Gaza, which will be marked on 27 December.

But, the statement added, “We encourage such ideas that promote beauty that is committed to age-old Palestinian traditions and values.”

Sounds to me like contestants were supposed to parade themselves before pressing the detonator button.

Meanwhile, it’s not all bad. Miss Camel is still all set to go.

• A review of the 36 “most serious” cases of alleged war crimes cited in the Goldstone Report, concluding that 30 of them are “baseless accusations,” while the other 6 related to genuine instances, where operational errors and mistakes were involved.
• A chapter on the humanitarian efforts that the IDF made during Operation Cast Lead

While the IDF has not yet decided what it will do with the report and whether it will be released to the public, it has already launched a diplomatic campaign to present some of the results of its probe.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

12:24PM: In an interview with CNN, jailed palestinian terrorists Marwan Barghouti expects to be part of a Shalit-for-terrorists exchange deal.

“I am part of the list that Hamas is negotiating over, and I have high hopes and expectations to be released in this deal.”

6:44AM: It looks like someone at the palestinian Ma’an News has a sense of humor.

[click image to enlarge]

Meanwhile, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit said his country would urge Israel to be flexible in talks for Shalit’s release.

In an interview with Al-Arabiya Saturday night, Aboul-Gheit said, “We are trying to influence Israel’s position, and to stress that Israel should not go overboard in its demands and that it must pay the required price.”

Hamas are demanding hundreds upon hundreds of prisoners and terrorists for the release of one young man, and it is Israel that is “going overboard with its demands”?

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:12PM: Ma’an News reports:

Rights groups and the Palestinian Authority (PA) accused the Hamas-backed government in Gaza of barring Palestinian patients from leaving the territory for medical treatment on Monday.

The Health Ministry in the de facto government in Gaza denied the claims, saying that they allowed ambulances to leave Gaza through the Erez crossing point en route to hospitals in Jerusalem and Israel.

The Health Ministry in the Ramallah government said that four of the patients in question were in a life-threatening situation as a result of the ban. The PA in Ramallah had coordinated their transfer with the Israeli government.

Dr Omar An-Nasser, the head of public relations in the Ramallah ministry told Ma’an, “The Israeli side informed us that the Erez crossing will be closed at 4:00 pm and after that the ambulances won’t be able to cross. This threatens the lives of the patients inside the ambulances.”

Notice how Hamas has changed its tune. As I mentioned in my 5:55AM update, Hamas denied palestinian swine flu patients were being transferred to hospitals in Israel. Now we see Hamas claiming they are not preventing palestinian swine flu patients from being transferred to hospitals in Israel.

4:20PM: Anti-Israel terror enabler Lauren Booth is up to her old tricks.

12:00PM: Zionist Death Tweets^TM?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday urged the West to use the social “power of the Internet” to counter the Iranian threat and the Islamic regime’s crackdown on its own opposition.

In an address to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Netanyahu reiterated Israel’s concern over Iran’s contentious nuclear program.

The prime minister declared that Iran posed a plethora of threats to the world as well as to its own people, including its “violent elections, the discovery of the nuclear facility in Qom, its deception of the international community and preventing its nation’s freedom of information through the Internet.”

“Iran is silencing all sources of information,” said Netanyahu. “Using the power of the Internet and of Twitter against the Iranian regime is a tremendous thing that the United States can do.”

Where has Netanyahu been? Doesn’t he know that individuals have been using the Internet and Twitter in such a way well before he likely knew what Twitter was?

And why does he think this is something only the US can do? The point is anyone with access to the Internet can utilize these tools.

7:38AM: Israel’s Foreign Ministry Director-General reportedly met late last week with UNIFIL commander Maj.-Gen. Claudio Graziano to discuss the terms of a possible Israeli withdrawal from the northern part of Ghajar, a village on the border between Israel, Lebanon and Syria, which has for decades been cited as an obstacle preventing peace.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that even if we withdraw from this village, Hizbullah will continue to fire rockets into Israel, and Lebanon will not go out of their way to sign a peace agreement with Israel.

6:08AM: A short video on some Israeli contributions to the world.

6:04AM: “Alpha, you better stop smoking ganja.”

6:02AM: One of Reuters’ images of the year:

RNPS IMAGES OF THE YEAR 2009 MEA – A member of the Palestinian security forces (R) kicks a Palestinian stone-thrower, protesting Israel’s offensive in Gaza, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem January 8, 2009.

Funny, but I don’t seem to recall any “pro-palestinian activists” speaking out against this. I guess they were too busy calling for the destruction of Israel.

5:55AM: Fact 1: Some palestinians speak of a benefit of Israel’s restriction on the flow of people to and from Gaza.

Health workers in the Gaza Strip announced the first death and first cases of H1N1 swine flu on Sunday, worrying Palestinians who had said that Israel’s blockade of the territory was keeping the virus at bay.

—-

The ministry said the five were diagnosed with H1N1 on Saturday. Health workers said it appeared to have been kept out of Gaza until now due to restrictions that limit the flow of people as well as goods into the enclave, which is governed by Hamas.

Fact 2: Israel has been treating Gazans diagnosed with H1N1 swine flu.

The Health Ministry and medical workers said five people diagnosed with H1N1 on Saturday were transferred to Israel for treatment and a sixth, female patient suffering underlying health problems died in the territory run by Hamas Islamists.

Fact 3: Israel does not limit shipments of medical supplies into Gaza, and palestinians blame the Fatah-Hamas infighting for the shortage of some, including the swine flu vaccine.

Some medicines are in short supply, but Israel insists it does not limit shipment of medical supplies. Instead, Palestinians say the rivalry between Hamas and Abbas’ Palestinian Authority could be to blame.The Palestinian Authority is responsible for sending medicines to Gaza, but officials there way Abbas’ government routinely keeps Gaza in short supply.

One key shortage is swine flu vaccine.

Fact 4: Hamas cannot handle the truth.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza denied reports on Sunday that six patients diagnosed with H1N1 swine flu were transferred to Israel for treatment.

Deputy Minister of Health Hasan Khalaf told Ma’an, “These reports are totally untrue.”

“The cases that were said to be transferred to Israel are in Gaza and receiving the necessary treatment.”

He characterized the reports as “[lies] aiming at arousing confusion.”

Khalaf also said the Health Ministry is implementing a comprehensive plan to combat swine flu.