In short, Levy and Katz are right, they are just using different spellings. Cohen is simply wrong.

Here’s the story.

Earlier today, Avital Leibovitch, official Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson to the international press, tweeted:

IDF arresteda palestinian-Iman Alshrona Ismael Salama-was one of the people released for the return of #GiladShalit.#terror #defense

— Avital Leibovich (@AvitalLeibovich) January 31, 2012

From Ynet and The Jerusalem Post we learn that the arrested terrorist is 36 years old, first arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 38 years in prison “for his involvement in a 2002 bomb attack in Beersheba which wounded 18 people as well as for a series of shooting attacks during the Second Intifada.” In addition, we learn that he was released around Hebron in the first wave of the Shalit release.

Yet, the ONLY terrorist that matches that description on the Israel Prison Services (IPS) ENGLISH list is Mahmud Abdallah Abd al-Rahman Abu Sariya.

So, who is Iman (Ayman) Alshrona (Sharona) Ismael Salama?

Well, Iman Alshrona Ismael Salama is Mahmud Abdallah Abd al-Rahman Abu Sariya.

Iman Alshrona is his name on the IPS Hebrew list, while Mahmud Abdallah Abd al-Rahman Abu Sariya is his English name. Levy and Katz are simply writing his name in different forms.

Earlier I wrote that Gili Cohen of Haaretz is simply wrong in her report. Here’s why. According to Cohen’s report:

The Israel Defense Forces arrested Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut, a Palestinian man who was released from Israeli prison in October as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal. Stut’s arrest makes him the first released prisoner to be recaptured since the prisoner swap.

In short, Israel DID NOT rearrest Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut. According to the IPS list Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut was only serving 25 years, not 38 years, as Levy, Katz and Cohen all reported. More importantly, Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut was RELEASED to Gaza, and Levy, Katz and Cohen all reported that the terrorist had been captured near Hebron.

Update: It appears that the Haaretz Hebrew version of the article does list the arrested terrorist as Ayman Sharona, the English edition still says it was Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut.

Update: As you can tell and as Jim noted in the comments, Cohen says her information was provided by the IDF. I contacted the IDF and received the following response.

We don’t elaborate on reporters who turn to us for comment, but we can safely confirm that we only put out two versions of his name–first the Hebrew version, then the English one. The name ‘Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut’ was never in our files.

Update: Israel Hayom made the same mistake as Haaretz.

The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday arrested a Palestinian man released as part of the Gilad Schalit prisoner swap, calling him a “security threat.” Mamun Ismyail Salame, 36, was taken into custody after the IDF received intelligence concerning alleged terrorist activities on behalf of Hamas in Judea and Samaria.

I contacted Amir Mizroch, the English editor of Israel Hayom, and he said that he would make the change and within minutes he did. I have been unable to find a email for Gili Cohen to let her know of the mistake, anyone have?

Now it seems the hackers agree they made an awful mistake. Regarding Ha’aretz (hat tip: EoZ).

Apologizing for bringing down Ha’aretz, but not Israeli hospitals treating Israelis and palestinians alike, speaks volumes about the hackers.

Not to mention Ha’aretz.

Pro-Palestinian hackers brought down Haaretz’s Hebrew website on Wednesday, after several Israeli websites were targeted earlier in the day.

Haaretz Hebrew website was brought down in a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, as a cyber war between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian hackers continued.

In a Twitter message, Anonymous Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack: “haaretz.co.il Tango Down ”.

The attack came hours after hackers attacked the websites of two Israeli hospitals, managing to bring down the sites for several hours.

According to the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, the Mossad identified multiple attempts to break into the hospital’s website, similar to previous cyber attacks on websites of important Israeli institutions.

As a result, Sheba’s website was paralyzed for several hours, saying that its security system is “attempting to identify the source of attack the problem in order to block threatening activity.”

The Sheba website, as well as that of Assouta Medical Center, Tel Aviv were able to be fully recovered, however, the extent of the damage caused to the patients’ personal files has yet to be seen.

Palestinians are the recipients of care at the Sheba medical center. Here is a recent, well publicized example:

Some 1,000 Palestinians received hearing aids recently as part of a humanitarian project organized by the American Friends of Sheba Medical Center, the Starkey Hearing Foundation and the Physicians for Human Rights-Israel organization.

Under the direction of Dr. Rafi Walden, the deputy director of the Sheba Medical Center and a member of Physicians for Human Rights, a team consisting of 20 doctors, medical students, and a speech therapist set out on a three-day humanitarian mission in the West Bank city of Tulkarm.

They conducted hearing tests and hearing aid fittings for those who need them. The hearing aids, which were donated by the US-based Starkey Hearing Foundation and cost $1 million, were distributed two months later.

Palestinians – children, women and the elderly – who suffer from hearing impairment and are disconnected from the surroundings, to hear again,” he said.

The same goes for Assouta Medical Center.

So I have to wonder how many of the patients whose personal files may have been damaged are palestinian.

As for Ha’aretz…need I even explain?

A total eclipse of the moon will be seen in Israel on Saturday, peaking at 4:30 P.M. and lasting just under half an hour. The moon will remain partially eclipsed until about 6:18 P.M., the Bareket observatory in Maccabim said. Saturday’s eclipse is unusual because it will take place at sunset.

So now you know…. look up.

It turns out a Jewish man did shoot the teen..in self-defence.

Reuters

Police said Thursday that a man, apparently a settler, who shot and killed a 19-year old Palestinian Thursday in the West Bank, had been attacked by a group of Arabs and was acting in self defense.

The man has not yet been identified and police are not sure of his whereabouts.

A police investigation has concluded that the shooter, who was armed with a gun, was walking alone on a path near the village of Iraq Burin when he was attacked.

The man tried to ward off his assailants, but one of them approached him with a stone, police said. He fired a single shot and fled the scene. The victim has been identified as Udai Maher Qadous.

Ynet has learned that the police are relying on testimony given by one of the Arab youths, as well as footage from an IDF security camera at the scene.

The Samaria Settlers’ Committee responded by stating, “Today it was once again proven that Arab blood libels against Jews are automatically adopted by leftist organizations that incite against settlers. After it was proved that this was self-defense, we expect everyone to apologize.”

Samaria Regional Council head Gershon Mesika said, “I am glad police exposed today the truth behind the Arab plot. Unfortunately these plots are usually made public in a manner that harms and libels the Jewish population.”

Yitzhar spokesman Avraham Binyamin responded to the report as well. “The police announcement proves once again that the Arabs have blood on their hands. The hands of the extreme leftist organizations are filthy as well, for touting Arab blood libels,” he said.

JPost paints an even more precarious situation for the Jewish man.

The Judea and Samaria Police said late Thursday night that a Palestinian teen from the West Bank village of Iraq Burin was killed after he threatened a pedestrian with a rock.

The police said that they did not know the identity of the pedestrian, but that they were exploring the possibility that he was Israeli, and maybe a settler.

—-

The man was walking in the area of Iraq Burin when he was surrounded by a group of Palestinians who began throwing rocks at him, according to an initial police investigation.

One of the Palestinians, a teenager, then moved toward him with a rock in hand, police reported.

The man tried to force the Palestinian teenager to step back, the police said. When that failed the man took out a gun and shot at the teen.

Amazingly, the report of the left-wing Ha’aretz paints an equally precarious situation for the Jewish man, and adds the important details that he only shot at them after his warning shots were ignored, as well as the fact the palestinians’ changed their testimony.

The Palestinian who was shot to death near Nablus on Thursday appears to have been shot by an unidentified Israeli, police confirmed after Palestinians reported earlier in the day that the shooting was carried out by a settler.

Palestinian eyewitnesses said that 18-year-old Fadi Kaddous was shot to death by a settler after clashes broke out between the settler and a group of rock-throwing Palestinians.

A nearby security camera apparently captured grainy images of the shooting and confirmed that the shooter had Israeli features.

The camera footage showed the group of Palestinians attacking a man with rocks. The man responded by firing a gun in the air, which failed to deter his attackers. The man fired again, this time in the direction of the Palestinians. The video supposedly shows the bullet entering and exiting the shoulder-chest region of one of the attackers; it is being further studied by ballistics experts.

Police also investigated the group of three Palestinian villagers who reported the incident. The group had at first said that armed settlers attacked them but further on in the investigation changed their testimony. The police are currently searching for the unidentified shooter.

Not amazingly, Ha’aretz still found a way to headline the story in a way to point the blame at the Jewish man.

REUTERS/Jamal Saidi

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is on a two-day visit to Lebanon, spoke before a mass rally organized in is honor by Hezbollah at the Dahiya quarter of Beirut, which is considered one of the Shiite group’s strongholds.

Wednesday’s rally, which saw masses gather at a local soccer field, waving Iranian flags and chanted “Welcome” in Persian, was missing Hezbollah Chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who welcomed Ahmadinejad to Lebanon via a video feed from his bunker: “I welcome you here on behalf of the injured, the dead, the released prisoners and this people, who have fought to create the miracle of victory. You are a steadfast staff for the resistance.”

“I come from the land of the Imam Khomeini, bearing the best wishes of the Iranian people and its leaders,” Ahmadinejad told the masses. “Lebanon is the an example and school for unwavering resistance to the world’s tyrants and a university for Jihad. Visiting Lebanon and meeting the leaders is a dream come true for me.”

Ahmadinejad spoke in Persian and used an interpreter.

The Iranian leader wasted no time in attacking Israel for violating the Palestinians’ rights: “Do you see anything but crimes in the past actions of the Zionist regime? The massacre of innocent people, the use of weapons, razing homes, confiscating medicine, food and water, attacking civilians in international waters and threatening the world is an everyday occurrence for them.”

The West, he added, considers Israel “means of dominating the world,” and to that end it has given it nuclear weapons.

‘Israel’s weakness exposed’

Turning his attention to the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead, the Iranian president said the two military campaigns “exposed Israel’s weakness… it is also possible that those barbaric Zionists will seek a new regional adventure to try and compensate. I say – any attack will only bring this phony regime closer to its end.”

‘A dream come true.’ Ahmadinejad

As for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the talks are taking place while Israel “is perpetuating the occupation and disrespects International Law,” he said. “The only way to resolve the problems in Palestine and bring peace to the region is to recognize the rights of the Palestinians, allow the refugees to return to their land and send the conquerors back to their homelands. The Zionists must return Palestine to its true owner, or they will be obliterated by the wrath of the Palestinian people.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

6:46PM: Well done to Ha’aretz for finding a way to demonize Israeli “settlers” in a story about palestinians who drowned in a well.

Three Palestinians in the West Bank drowned in a well full of olive mulch on Thursday after a boy fell into the pit and two men dived in to save him.

The freak accident at a village near Tul Karm occurred just a few days into the West Bank olive harvest season, where risks of injury are usually linked to clashes with Israeli settlers over access to olive groves.

The three drowned in a three-meter (13-foot) deep pool of thick liquid waste left over from the olive oil pressing process. Police took the owner of the press into custody for questioning.

I’m just surprised they didn’t accuse “settlers” of pushing them down the well.

3:32PM: Regarding that explosion in Iran I blogged about earlier:

More than 18 Revolutionary guards were killed and 14 others wounded in an explosion Tuesday at a base of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRG) Corps in the Western Iranian province of Lurestan, reported Iran’s official news agency IRNA Wednesday.

A Deputy Commander of the Corps said that blast resulted from a fire that spread to a munitions depot at the corps’s base in Khoramabad, 300 miles southwest of the capital, Tehran, and close to Iran’s restive Kurdistan region.

Police and fire-and-rescue teams were rushed to the IRG base and the injured were taken to a hospital in Khoramabad, the agency said.

The base houses underground launching and storage facilities for Iran’s medium-range Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, said research group Global Security.

Lorestan Governor General Hassan Shariatnejad visited the injured persons hospitalized and offered his condolences over the tragic incident. Local officials declared a two-day mourning Wednesday and a funeral was scheduled for Thursday.

Hat tip: Carl, via Shy Guy.

3:22PM: In the Independent, Adrian Hamilton argues that Israel has no future as a purely Jewish state.

But here’s the clincher:

The more closely you define Israel as a uniquely “Jewish” state, the less room there is for it to act as a co-operative member of a Muslim majority Middle East. Its role becomes that of an enclave which views itself as not just separate but in clear opposition to everyone else about it.

In other words, Hamilton opposes a Jewish state because it is not a Muslim one (hat tip: Just Journalism).

3:08PM: Oneindia News reports:

18 guards from the powerful Revolutionary Guard force were killed in an explosion in Iran’s military base on Oct 12.

According the country’s domestic media report, 14 other Guard troops were wounded in the blast at the military base, which was situated in 300 miles southwest of the capital, Tehran.

As per the report, a fire, which spread to the ammunition depot, caused the massive explosion in the military depot.

Iran is battling armed militant and separatist movements in the remote southeast along the border with Pakistan and in the far northwest along the border with Iraq.

2:42PM: Quote of the day:

“If you’re going to the Middle East to look for oil, you can skip Israel. If you’re looking for brains, look no further.
Israel has shown that it has a disproportionate amount of brains and energy.”

- Businessman Warren Buffet

2:35PM: It has been reported that Israel has one of the hottest property markets in the world.

Israel, despite perennial fears of war, has emerged as one of the hottest — and least likely — property markets in the world: Since real estate collapsed around the globe in 2008, at least one industry watchdog lists it as the fastest-rising property market on earth.

But with global economic meltdown — and the sub-prime mortgage fiasco that precipitated it — still fresh in people’s minds, officials are stepping up efforts to rein in its overheated property sector. The fear is that a property bubble could shake confidence in an economy that withstood the worst of the world’s financial crisis.

In the span of months, the central bank has raised interest rates several times and the government is rallying to build new units in this land-strapped country.

“The housing market has set off enough crises, and we’re not going to let that happen in Israel,” Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said earlier this month in announcing his sixth rate hike in just over a year.

According to Global Property Guide, a trade magazine that monitors the housing market, Israeli housing prices in the second quarter of 2010 rose sixth-fastest in a ranking of 36 countries. Four of the top five, including Singapore and Latvia, were rebounding from sharp price drops. So looking at the past two years ended in June — the last period for which there is data — Israeli real estate clocks in at No. 1.

9:46AM: If only…

(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

6:10AM: Meet Hisham Abu Varia, the first Arab-Israeli IDF officer.

“The army is the entry pass into the Israeli society,” Hisham explains. “The Arab sector thinks it’s second rate here, but to get privileges one has to give and not just receive. The state protects its citizens even if they don’t serve – my parents live off income support. You must contribute to the country you live off. What other country would have an Arab Knesset member, who is being paid by the state, promoting the interests of the Islamic movement and screwing the promotion of the sector it is supposed to represent?”

Read the whole thing here.

6:05AM: Ahmadinejad speaking at the rally in Lebanon:

5:56AM: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has extended Israel’s blessings to Chile following the rescue of the miners. Followed by a “I predicted this.”

Say what?

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the rescue of the Chilean miners today that it was one of those rare moments of elation,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement Wednesday, adding that “the entire world has been moved by this human act of saving miners trapped in the belly of the earth. We extend our blessings and the blessing of the people of Israel to the Chilean nation and to everyone who assisted in the rescue.”

The statement goes on to mention that “Netanyahu predicted such an event – a mine disaster – in his book Terrorism: How the West can win from 1987.” Quotes from the book were sent to reporters in addition to a scanned page from the actual volume.

In his book, Netanyahu described a possible mine disaster, saying that even though only a handful of miners may be trapped, the entire world’s attention would be riveted to their welfare “for a long time.” He explained his argument, saying that it would not only be the intense media coverage of such an event that would turn people’s attention to the event, but every individual’s private feeling that it could be him or her trapped in a similar situation.

Here’s my prediction: conspiracy theorists are going to use this to argue that Israel was actually behind the mine collapse.

Only to have the offer rejected out of hand.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered the Palestinians a trade off on Monday to revive peace talks they quit — a new freeze on building in settlements if they recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The Palestinians immediately rejected making any such declaration, which they have long opposed.

The impasse deepened doubts over the chances of resuming U.S.-brokered negotiations that stalled last month after Israel refused to extend a 10-month moratorium on housing starts in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“If the Palestinian leadership will say unequivocally to its people that it recognizes Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, I will be ready to convene my government and request a further suspension,” Netanyahu told parliament.

“This is not a condition but a trust-building step, which would create wide-ranging trust among the Israeli people, who have lost trust in the Palestinian will for peace over the last 10 years,” he said.

—-

Netanyahu made his move on Monday just three days after the Palestinians and Arab powers had given the United States a month to persuade Israel to declare a new moratorium.

“All settlement is illegitimate, it must be frozen for a return to negotiations,” said Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

“The issue of the Jewishness of the state has nothing to do with the matter,” he told Reuters, adding that the Palestinians had already recognised Israel and that this should suffice.

The Palestinian leadership argues that recognition of Israel as a Jewish state would compromise the rights of Arab citizens of Israel who make up 20 percent of the population.

Such a move, Palestinian officials say, also would effectively forgo the right of return of Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced from their homes in Arab-Israeli wars to return to territory that is now Israel.

George Giacaman, a political scientist at Birzeit University near the West Bank city of Ramallah called Netanyahu’s proposal a non-starter.

“I think the Americans will try a last ditch effort to find a formula acceptable to both sides,” he said.

“If this is the last word, the political process will stall and the Palestinian leadership will be forced to look at alternatives,” Giacaman said.

It’s amazing that we find ourselves 17 or so years into this “peace process”, and the palestinians won’t recognize something so fundamental as Israel being a Jewish state.

What’s even more amazing is the world thinks that Jews adding some new buildings in disputed territories is the obstacle to peace.

By the way, I wonder what the political scientist at Birzeit University means by “the Palestinian leadership will be forced to look at alternatives.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:25PM: Despite denying his 30th anniversary tour of The Wall includes imagery that could be interpreted as antisemitic, musician Roger Waters has made a change.

A few days after issuing this declaration, however, Waters did make one small change to the segment: Instead of dollar signs following the Star of David out of the B-52′s cargo bay, it now shows the Mercedes symbol doing so.

8:15PM: J Street gets caught in a lie.

7:56PM: Evil old bag Helen Thomas has told a radio host that she stands by the anti-Israel comments that got her fired.

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has acknowledged she touched a nerve with remarks about Israel that led to her retirement. But she says the comments were “exactly what I thought,” even though she realized soon afterward that it was the end of her job.

“I hit the third rail. You cannot criticize Israel in this country and survive,” Thomas told Ohio station WMRN-AM in a sometimes emotional 35-minute interview that aired Tuesday. It was recorded a week earlier by WMRN reporter Scott Spears at Thomas’ Washington, D.C., condominium.

—-

“(It was) very hard for the first two weeks. After that, I came out of my coma,” said Thomas, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Lebanon.

Rabbi David Nesenoff, who runs the website rabbilive.com, said he approached Thomas after he’d been at the White House for Jewish Heritage Day on May 27. He asked whether she had any comments on Israel.

“Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” she replied.

“Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land. It’s not Germany, it’s not Poland,” she continued. Asked where they should go, she answered, “They should go home.”

“Where’s home?” Nesenoff asked.

“Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else,” Thomas replied.

“I told him exactly what I thought,” she told Spears, who said during the interview that some accounts left off her reference to America. Thomas did not disagree.

“I was not talking about Auschwitz or anything else,” she said.

“They distorted my remarks, which they obviously have to do for their own propaganda purposes, otherwise people might wonder why they continue to take Palestinian land,” said Thomas. There was no explanation of whom “they” referred to.

When she soon began getting calls about her remark, “I said this is the end of my job.”

She issued an apology, she told the radio interviewer, because people were upset and she thought she had hurt people. “At the same time, I had the same feelings about Israel’s aggression and brutality,” Thomas said.

Asked whether she’s anti-Semitic, she responded “Baloney!” She said she wants to be remembered for “integrity and my honesty and my belief in good journalism” and would like to work again.

Here’s hoping the next job she gets is as one of the 72 virgins awaiting Islamic terrorists in hell.

5:50PM: Breathtaking photographs of Tel Aviv which are not photoshopped.

5:45PM: Noted Middle East expert Annie Lennox is back in the news, this time expressing her disdain for the idea of coming to Israel.

“I don’t have any interest to go to Israel. I don’t think I’d ever have a cause to go. It would be too volatile (to perform), I think, because people get carried away and they twist what you say,” pop icon Annie Lennox told The Observer.

In the interview, published by the British magazine Sunday to mark the release of her new single and her nomination for the Barclays Woman of the Year Award, the former Eurythmics singer addressed her criticism of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, launched in December 2008. “I was critical of Israel’s policy of bombing Gaza, that was populated by mainly children in a space where they couldn’t escape from. I said that it was not the way forward to peace,” she explained.

At the time Lennox flatly rejected claims that in attending a demonstration against Israel, she was effectively supporting Hamas. She was also accused of naivety and even anti-Semitism.

“That really hurt,” she told the Observer, “and it’s a pack of nonsense. My children are half-Israeli. Why should I ever be anti-Semitic?”

Lennox also told the British magazine that her Israeli ex-husband respected her stand and told her there were many Israelis who were proud of her.

I really wish she would come to Israel. We make a great cup of STFU.

2:38PM: From Ynetnews:

Looks like he has used the formula on Shimon Peres.

1:50PM: Here is Sinn Fein councillor Toireasa Ferris, who just went to Syria to join another flotilla against Israel, refusing to condemn terror attacks.

It is amazing how these flotillas attract such scum and villainy.

1:44PM: Quote of the day:

“In the eyes of Palestinians, the occupation began in ’48 and not in ’67. Not only Hamas thinks this – Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] does too.”

“Their refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state shows they have no interest in having Israel as a state beside theirs.”

- Israeli Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon

He gets it.

1:20PM: Classic British comedy Yes Prime Minister ended over 20 years ago, but this scene seems as relevant today as ever.

9:40AM: Hebrew University students have kicked off the year with a “lip dub.”

9:28AM: No doubt the AP photographer was licking his proverbial chops after taking this unflattering photo of the Israeli Prime Minister.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the opening of the winter session at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, Oct. 11, 2010. Netanyahu offered to renew a moratorium on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank on Monday, but only if the Palestinians meet his demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

8:56AM: Visiting Hollywood star Ashton Kutcher has some advice for Israel:

Social networking wunderkind and That ’70s Show star Ashton Kutcher delivered a talk on new media at the Bezeq Expo in Tel Aviv on Monday, where he provided tips on how to use new forms of communication and networking to market Israel.

“The first thing I would do is ask you, who do you want to market to? Because a general marketing campaign for the whole world doesn’t work; in some parts of the world they won’t like the message, and in other parts of the world they will,” he said. “The first thing you need to decide is who do you want to influence and what do you want to say to them.”

Kutcher, who this year was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world for his mastery of social networking, said Israel must figure out which groups to target, by “being honest with them and having open, candid conversations about what Israel is and who it is, because the people here are amazing – the young people here are amazing. The entrepreneurs here are incredible.”

Kutcher added that Israel needs to showcase its “smart, intelligent, bright, caring people who are looking for solutions in the world.”

I think that is actually good advice.

6:22AM: Who needs Al Jazeera when you have Ha’aretz:

Allegedly threw stones at it? Did the journalist not see the widely available video tape??

6:18AM: The AP’s Aron Heller spins the Netanyahu offer rejection story so as to make the palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state sound reasonable:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said for the first time that he would extend the settlement restrictions in the West Bank — if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish national homeland.

The idea, while innocuous to Israel’s supporters, is widely seen as undermining the rights of Arab Israelis, and was immediately rejected by the Palestinians. But it could signal that Netanyahu is willing to bend and save a U.S.-led peace effort in exchange for a different concession.

Yet he does not mention a settlement freeze as “undermining the rights of Jewish Israelis.” Nor, for that matter, the idea of a palestinian state to begin with.

Strike smuggling tunnels and/or terrorist infrastructure.

AP

In Response to Mortar Fire Causing Injuries to IDF Soldiers, IAF Targets Smuggling Tunnels, Weapons Manufacturing Site and Terror Tunnel in Gaza Strip

The Israel Air Force struck a weapons manufacturing site in the central Gaza Strip, two weapons-smuggling tunnels and a terror tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip overnight.

The attack is in response to the mortar shells that were fired at Israel, hitting the Eshkol Regional Council communities, during the past 24 hours, causing light injuries to two IDF soldiers.

More than 115 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israeli territory since the beginning of 2010, and over 420 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel since the end of operation Cast Lead.

The IDF remains committed to protecting the citizens of Israel and will continue to act against terror. The IDF holds Hamas solely responsible for terror emanating from the Gaza Strip.

Interestingly enough, the palestinian Ma’an news has not (yet) reported it.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

5:04PM: Who’d have thought the IDF Band would one day play music from Fiddler on the Roof in Red, Square, Moscow.

4:54PM: Question: What do Kermit the Frog and Tel Aviv have in common?

Answer: They are both green.

4:36PM: Here is some fun for the whole family: the opportunity to help name the new Canadian ship to Gaza (hat tip: Blazing Catfur).

Well, the old spoil-sports took down all of our pithy suggestions for the dinghy that Ali Mallah, our old friend Kevin “the Liar” Neish and rabble.ca.’s Kim Elliott want to send to Gaza. The new list is all committee approved before it gets to their website and hasn’t grown since we had our fun with them.

But..they are using a twitter application called backtype that allows them to keep track every time their site is mentioned. So if you have a twitter account just suggest a name and add this URL (http://canadaboatgaza.org/cms/sites/cbg/en/suggest-name.aspx)  to the tweet, and they’ll get to see your idea.

I’ve already contributed The Sea Hitler and The Mavi Masturbaters to what I’m sure will be an amusing new selection.

2:18PM: Good riddance.

Amin al-Hindi, a planner of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre and one of the founders of the Palestinian security services, died at a hospital in the Jordanian capital of Amman on Tuesday at the age of 70.

Ata Khairy, the Palestinian envoy to Jordan, said al-Hindi died of cancer of the liver and pancreas.

Khairy says al-Hindi slipped into a coma after he underwent surgery in Jordan last week.

I wonder how long it will be before we hear the accusations that Israel killed him.

1:00PM: Interview on the Israeli woman Facebook fiasco. Note the “objectivity” of the interviewer.

12:35PM: Quote of the day:

“I won’t play in films that come out against the State, and there have been quite a few of those recently.”

- Famous Israeli actor Chaim Topol (Tevye from Fiddle on the Roof)

12:18PM: The PA is accusing us of staging the Turkish embassy standoff!

According to the PA, the attack on the Turkish embassy is a stunt carried out by the Israeli security mechanisms. “We are certain that the depth of the connection between the Palestinian people and the Turkish people is deeper and stronger than an absurd action planned by the Shin Bet and carried out by a known collaborator.”

Good peace partners are so hard to find.

11:30AM: Park51, the self-called “official Twitter account” of the Ground Zero mosque project, has caused a small outcry by slamming Ha’aretz on Twitter (after the latter incorrectly reported that plans for the controversial Islamic prayer center were being abandoned) as follows:

On a side note, if Haaretz likes publishing fables, perhaps they could go back to the Yiddish ones with parables #welikethosebetter

After some called this tweet “anti-semitic,” Park51 removed it from its Twitter page, although the permalink is obviously still available. They also issued an apology and then tried to explain it away:

No I meant Haaretz and I meant it as a joke as my cousin’s mother used to tell us Yiddish stories as kids (she’s Jewish)

Ahh yes, some of my best cousins’ mothers are Jewish….

7:36AM: Introducing another of our latest weapons: The Flying Capacitor of Death.^TM

What they don’t yet know is it can also travel in time.

7:22AM: Hamas explained.

7:18AM: IDF soldiers explain their abuse of palestinians during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

7:16AM: Introducing our latest weapon: Zionist Turnstile of Death.^TM

A 10-month old child sustained a hand fracture and bruising on Monday after his arm got caught in a checkpoint turnstile as it continued to rotate, the infant’s mother said.

Shirin Qasrawi told Ma’an her son Mu’min was taken to the Al-Maqaseed Hospital in East Jerusalem for treatment after he tried to cross the 300 checkpoint, also known as the Rachel’s Tomb checkpoint, between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The family was en route from Halhul in Hebron for prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

The child sustained bruises and cuts to the face after repeatedly slamming into the iron bars, Qasrawi said. “As I attempted to get the baby out of the carousel, he was crying and his hand was fractured. The soldiers saw the carousel rotating with the baby inside, but they waited until he fainted and fell to the ground,” she added.

An Israeli ambulance arrived at the checkpoint and transferred the child to hospital for treatment.

Notice our interesting tactic: don’t help the baby until he really needs the hospital, and then transfer him to there at our expense. It’s so illogical, it’s brilliant!

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You’d think she would would be happy that her case was once again being covered by Israel’s premier left-wing newspaper.

Think again.

On her Facebook group, Chappell reveals once again the depth of her hatred of Israel.

[click to enlarge]

That’s correct. Chappell refers to the very left-wing Ha’aretz as one of the “increasing number of appendages of the zionist machine”!

Notice also how she is bent on criticizing the report, including its spelling of her name. Assuming that is her name.

And I’d be remiss to not point out this statement regarding coverage of her antics in the Israeli newspapers:

i wonder who’s at the head of it all? i wonder why he can’t get a girlfriend instead?

I think she’s being modest. What man wouldn’t be attracted to this?

AP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

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

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

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

Version one (Ha’aretz)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Version two (Ynet)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Jerusalem Post version also contains the relevant contextual information.

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

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

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

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

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

And this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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