Israellycool

This is a screenshot taken from Yahoo News Photos today:

If there had been an adjacent picture of a hole, the trifecta would be complete.

And still on the subject of Elder Moron Jimmy Carter, it looks like the reception he is recieving in Israel is about as cold as the peace he helped broker between Israel and Egypt.

That’s really cold for those of you a little slow on the uptake.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, broker of the first Israeli-Arab peace treaty, is getting a cool reception on his latest mission to the region: Israeli leaders are shunning him for accusing Israel of apartheid and for planning to meet with the head of the violently anti-Israel Hamas group.

A schedule released by the U.S.-based Carter Center showed no plans for the former president to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni or Defense Minister Ehud Barak during this week’s visit in Israel, which was scheduled to begin Sunday.

Scheduling problems was the official reason given, a senior Israeli official said - even though Olmert recently took time from his busy schedule to chat with Wentworth Miller of the U.S. TV drama, Prison Break. Olmert’s office declined comment.

What is really behind the cold shoulder is Carter’s plan to meet with Hamas’ Damascus-based political leader, Khaled Meshal, when his peacekeeping mission moves later in the week to Syria, the Israeli official said. “Israeli leaders are not publicly criticizing Carter out of respect for his former position as U.S. president,” he added.

In remarks to air Sunday on ABC News’ “This Week” Carter said that his upcoming visit to the Middle East will probably include a meeting in Syria with leaders of the militant group Hamas.

“I’ve not confirmed our itinerary yet for the Syrian visit, but it’s likely that I will be meeting with the Hamas leaders,” Carter said, bolstering the rumors that he was planning to meet Meshal.

Ahead of his arrival in Israel, Carter said he feels quite at ease about meeting Hamas militants.

“I think there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process,” Carter said.

Hamas is sworn to Israel’s destruction and has carried out dozens of suicide bombings that have killed more than 250 Israelis. Israel has no contacts with the Islamic militant group, whose violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June has undercut newly revived efforts by Israel and the Palestinians to strike a final peace deal.

Of course, not everyone is shunning him, and those who are willing to meet him include our very own Elder of Moron, President Shimon “Club Med Gaza” Peres.

The most prominent Israeli to meet with Carter during his visit will be President Shimon Peres, Israel’s ceremonial head of state, and a Nobel peace laureate for his role in the historic 1993 accord between Israel and the Palestinians. Carter also has meetings scheduled with several lawmakers, and is to visit Sderot, the southern Israeli town most frequently targeted by Gaza rocket squads.

Ynetnews reports on the brutal death of an Italian artist and peace activist.

A 33-year old Italian artist, Giuseppina Pasqualino, also known as Pippa Bacca, was found dead in Turkey on Saturday, after having been raped and murdered. Paqualino was hitchhiking towards Israel dressed in a wedding dress in an appeal for peace.

The woman was last seen on March 31 in the mainly industrial city of Gebze, while hitchhiking to Israel in the wedding dress as part of her “Brides on Tour” project aiming to plead for peace in conflict areas. She disappeared after using her credit card around noon. Police found her naked body hidden in bushes in a forested area near Gebze, after questioning the man suspected of the murder late Friday, the governor’s office said.

Police tracked down the suspect when he switched on Pasqualino’s mobile phone, having inserted his own SIM card, an Italian Embassy official said. The official asked not to be named because he was not authorized to give information on the police investigation.

The suspect, identified only by his initials M.K., Had previously been convicted of theft, Anatolia reported. He was being questioned in police custody and no charges had been filed.

According to reports, M.K confessed to having picked up Pasqualino in his car, after which he drove into the forest, where he raped her and strangled her to death. Afterwards he attempted to bury the body.

Determinedly working for art

Pasqualino’s fiancé said in an interview that the artist was “very loyal. Unfortunately, she happened to meet the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He also commended the Turkish police on a job well done.

The artist’s mother said, “We were hoping she had been kidnapped by the Kurdish. We were trying to contact Muslim officials until we found out she had been murdered. We weren’t particularly worried because she had been hitchhiking for a lot of time, and thus was capable of avoiding risky situations. She was a determined person when it had to do with working for art.”

Besides being a brutal murder and a senseless waste of life, what an appropriate metaphor for the whole Middle East “peace process.” Israel is the trusting bride in white, blindly following the path of “peace”, while her enemies want nothing more than her rape, murder, and belongings.

Also note the telling quote from the victim’s mother.

“We were hoping she had been kidnapped by the Kurdish.”

(adapted from a post at Elder of Ziyon)

A book was recently published that examined the 1936 Olympics. It includes a section on the debate within the United States as to whether to boycott the games because of German racism.

While any objective observer would have clearly seen that Hitler had no interest in allowing German Jews to compete, the US Olympic Committee leaders were more than willing to swallow whatever excuses the Germans gave, and to look the other way, in order to keep the US in the games - for their own self-centered reasons.

Everyone with any sense knew that the Nazis were lying when they said they wouldn’t discriminate against Jews. But Nazi attempts to paper over their hatred - by saying that they were only against Zionism, not Jews, for example - were eagerly accepted by people whose self-interest coincided with the obvious lies.

Today, much of the lukewarm reaction by Europe towards Iranian genocidal speech (”only against Zionists, not Jews”), obvious nuclear ambitions (”for peaceful nuclear power”) and long-range ballistic missile development (”for an Iranian space program”) is powered by the same desire to overlook clear lies for short-term self-interest.

In some ways, this is a useful way to look at the entire Israel/Arab conflict. The Arab case - the destruction of Israel - is fundamentally one of aligning Arab wishes with the self-interests of the other nations of the world. The incentives are both positive (the huge petrodollar economy) and negative (the threat of terror,) but they are clothed in the language of morality (Israel’s treatment of “Palestinian refugees.”) The lies are obvious but they get lost in the static generated by the buzz of other nations’ self-interest.

Israel’s case to the world audience - that Israel has the right to exist in security- is primarily a moral one, and from a purely moral perspective it is correct. But the moral argument alone does not contribute as much towards the audience’s perceived self-interest as the incentives and disincentives of the Arab world.

This is why we see the world give more weight towards the moral arguments of the Arabs. By themselves, they are close to worthless, but combined with the implicit threats and economic rewards of their proponents their value becomes inflated to appear to be on a par with, or superior to, Israel’s moral claims. Any perceived moral infraction by Israel gets exaggerated, yet much worse violations of morality by Arabs get downplayed. In this fashion, the audience - primarily the West - can use the convenient moral cover to justify their ultimately self-serving actions (and it is of course in their self-interest to appear to be acting out of moral considerations rather than naked selfishness.)

The ironic part is that Israel’s interests really do conflate with Western self-interest more than those of the Arabs. The Islamist threat - powered by oil money and Western fears of terror - would not end with the destruction of Israel but with the Islamization of the world. Unfortunately, most nations usually sacrifice long-term interests in favor of the short term.

What this means for Israel is that it cannot rely on moral arguments alone to make their case. Israel’s leaders and supporters need to show how Israel’s case is in everyone’s - Western and Eastern alike - self-interest.

The Chief Elder of Moron continues to cement his credentials as an incredible cement-head.

A plan is coalescing to arrange a meeting between exiled senior Hamas leader Khalid Mash’al and former US President Jimmy Carter in Damascus on 18 April, Palestinian sources told the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat on Tuesday.

According to Al-Hayat, Carter’s aides will arrive in Syria soon to make arrangements for the meeting.

If the meeting is held, Carter will become the highest-ranking American official ever to publicly meet with Hamas leaders. Hamas officials did meet with representatives of President Bill Clinton’s administration in the 1990s.

During the proposed meeting, Carter will be presented as the chair of the Carter Center, rather than as a former US president. A Hamas official said that that the meeting would show that Hamas is a power that can’t be ignored in addressing the Palestinian question.

Because emboldening a terrorist group committed to the destruction of Israel is always a good idea when looking for peaceful solutions to the Middle East conflict.

Introducing our latest weapon: Extremist Zionist Colonizer of Death.^TM

An extremist coloniser ran over on Thursday morning a citizen in the West Bank city of Nablus, security sources told WAFA.

The sources added that Kayed Abu Ras 19, was heading to Hawwara Israeli military checkpoint when a colonizer deliberately ran him over. He was hit all over his body and taken to a hospital in Nablus for treatment.

What makes the Extremist Zionist Colonizer of Death^TM such an effective weapon is its ability to appear out of nowhere, and just run over a palestinian. Of course, the one in the above example did not quite do the job, somehow allowing the victim to survive being run over by a vehicle, especially odd considering he made sure he was “hit all over his body.”

The good news is that we have many such weapons. Here are some other recent examples:

RAMALLAH, December 30, 2007

Jewish colonizer ran over a citizen in the West Bank city of west Ramallah, local sources said.

The sources told WAFA that Wasfi al-Khateeb 21, died on Sunday due to his serious wounds as an extremist colonizer deliberately ran over him as he was heading home in the village of Na’alin.

RAMALLAH, March 23, 2008

An extremist colonizer has run over a citizen in the West Bank city of Ramallah, witnesses told WAFA.

They added that the youth Jihad Sharawana, of Hebron, was deliberately run over by a colonizer near Na’lin village, west Ramalla of the West Bank. The colonizer escaped the scene and Sharawana suffered broken arms and his condition is reported to be moderate.

The Jerusalem Post reports on a welcome - yet long overdue - development.

As peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians gather steam, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution on Tuesday urging that the issue of Jewish refugees be part of any agreement.

While the Palestinian claim of a “right of return” for its refugees has long been an issue - and stumbling block - in final-status talks, the resolution seeks to have the suffering of Jewish refugees taken into account as well.

Backers described it as the first congressional measure to recognize these refugees, and argued that it shouldn’t hinder the peace process, but rather ground it more firmly in the historical reality experienced by two peoples long at odds.

“This is not an impediment,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

He argued that raising the profile of Jewish refugees would create a stronger and more credible foundation for talks.

But the Arab American Institute suggested the resolution was unhelpful and “distracts attention” from other refugee issues, according to an action alert sent to its members last week.

The non-binding House resolution recounts the history of the issue and calls on the US to make sure that any international resolutions relating to the “required resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue” also contain “similarly explicit reference to the resolution of the issue of Jewish, Christian and other refugees from Arab countries.”

It also demands that the US make clear its position that “as an integral part of any comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace… all refugees displaced from Arab countries, including Jews, Christians and other minority groups,” be recognized.

Around the time of the creation of the State of Israel, hundreds of thousands of Jews in Arab countries lost their homes and savings - and in some instances, their lives - as they were forced to flee.

A similar number of Palestinians fled from present-day Israel as hostilities between Jewish and Arab armies broke out.

I take issue with this last statement. The number of Jewish refugees was around 820,000 - 850,000, while the number of Arabs who left Israeli-controlled territory was somewhere between 430,000 - 650,000.

“The world needs to understand that it’s not just Arabs and Palestinians, but it’s also Jewish people who were dispossessed of their homes and possessions, who were victims of terrorist acts and murder,” said Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-New York) on a conference call Monday with resolution cosponsors Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) and Mike Ferguson (R-New Jersey). A companion resolution in the Senate has yet to be voted on.

Regina Bubil-Waldman, a Jewish refugee who fled Libya as a child, welcomed the resolution with a quaver in her voice.

“It touches my heart, and I cannot tell you how emotional this is,” she said. “Only with historical truth can we build a better future - and today, that’s what we’re doing.”

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not exactly know why PA President grabbed her arm and walked behind her, but she did not think much of it at the time..

A few seconds later, and it became painfully obvious what he was up to..

The Associated Press reports:

Israel pledged to remove some West Bank roadblocks as a start to “concrete steps” in an agreement Sunday with the Palestinians that is aimed at paving the way for a final peace deal this year.

Get it? Roadblocks … concrete …paving. Those Associated Press writers are a laugh-a-minute.

Reading on, you would be forgiven for thinking the entire article is a joke. Or at least hoping it is.

Under the plan that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced, Israel will remove about 50 roadblocks and upgrade checkpoints to speed up the movement of Palestinians through the West Bank.

The Israelis also will give Palestinians more security responsibility in the town of Jenin with an eye toward looking at “other areas in turn.” They also pledged to increase the number of travel and work permits for Palestinians and to support economic projects in Palestinian towns.

In return, the Palestinians promised to improve policing of Jenin “to provide law and order, and work to prevent terror,” according to a State Department statement.

In other words, Israel agrees on a whole range of gestures, including relaxing security measures that have proven to be effective in reducing the number of palestinian terrorist attacks inside Israel, while the PA promises to..try prevent terror. Besides the fact that they supposedly promised to do that at the beginning of Oslo, it is something the success of which can’t really be measured. After all, the palestinians can always claim they have been trying, but haven’t been able to succeed due to any number of factors, all of which are Israel’s fault.

And to think us Jews are supposedly good negotiators.

Update: Someone please tell me this is an April Fools joke, albeit a few days premature.

Ynet has learned that the series of gestures include the establishment of a city or several neighborhoods near the West Bank city of Ramallah, which would be financed by a Jordanian businessman.

The project would be built north of the town of al-Bireh and is aimed to be inhabited by tens of thousands of Palestinians in a bid to ease the housing shortage in the Ramallah area.

The city will be connected by a road in the Birzeit area, approved by the IDF. The plan is currently subject to the approval of the Civil Administration, in coordination with the Palestinians.

We built this city on rocks and bombs.

Israel’s policy of not treating the conflict with the palestinians as a war to be won is paying dividends.

For the terrorists.

The Islamic Jihad terror group has recently began manufacturing rockets capable of reaching a 12.5-mile range, similar to the Grad rockets already in use by terror organizations in Gaza.

The new rockets are armed with a much deadlier warhead that carries double the amount of explosives compared to the regular Qassams, the IDF has recently learned.

According to army data, the terror groups have made use of the new rocket at least three times since the IDF’s Warm Summer Operation in Gaza concluded.

Regular Qassam rockets carry about 11 lbs of explosives and have a 4.5 inch caliber, while the new ones can carry up to 22 lbs of explosives and have a 6.5 caliber. The new rockets are also more accurate and sophisticated and are made out of lighter materials.

The IDF also learned that the armed groups in Gaza have recently obtained two new types of Iranian-made 4.7 inch caliber mortar shells: The first is equipped with an auxiliary engine and can travel up to 6.2 miles, while the other can reach a distance of 3.7 miles.

According to security officials, the new rocket indicates that the terror groups in Gaza have increased their efforts to develop new weapons and that they have been receiving help from agents outside the Strip.

“The fact that they are able to produce their own long-range rockets…is disturbing and worrying,” an army official said.

“There is no doubt that the smuggling of arms through the Philadelphi route and the breached border in the area are a significant weak spot and a major channel for terrorists. As time passes, the terror organizations will continue to become more established and sophisticated,” he warned.

This is why we need(ed) to defeat the terrorists and disarm them, rather than negotiate with them.

The same applies to the terrorists in the north, where the situation is even more worrying.

With Iranian backing, Hezbollah guerrillas have dramatically increased their rocket range and now threaten most of Israel, according to senior Israeli defense officials.

The Lebanon-based militant group has acquired new Iranian rockets with a range of around 300 kilometers (185 miles), the officials said. That means the guerrillas can strike anywhere in Israel’s heavily populated center and reach as far south as Dimona, where Israel’s nuclear reactor is located (notice how AP is reporting this as fact, despite the fact Israel won’t confirm or deny it - ed)

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge the confidential intelligence assessment to the media (so why are they divulging it to the media, and thus giving the terrorists information? - ed).

—-

Israel says that since the war Hezbollah’s Iranian and Syrian patrons have steadily provided the group with large amounts of rockets, many of them capable of hitting central Israel. However, it has not provided any of the evidence for its claims.

—-

The defense officials did not say how many of the new rockets Hezbollah has obtained. But Israeli officials have said that overall, Hezbollah now has many more rockets in its arsenal than the 14,000 it had before the conflict - likely more than double that number.

Given this assessment and Hizbullah’s recent rhetoric against Israel, I have little doubt they will be attacking us this year. I only hope Israeli lives are not lost, and we are willing to rub the terrorists out once and for all.

The Elders of Moron are off to a rocky start.

Israel turned down an offer by Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan to mediate a cease-fire with Hamas.

The former U.S. president and former U.N. secretary-general belong to The Elders, an international conflict-resolution group established last year by British tycoon Richard Branson.

Several weeks ago, the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem received a proposal that Carter and Annan come to Israel along with two other Elders, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Irish President Mary Robinson, to pursue a truce with Hamas and promote peacemaking with the Palestinian Authority.

After much deliberation, the offer was politely refused, Yediot Achronot reported Wednesday.

Much deliberation? Surely we jest.

“Israel believes that at this time, it would not be right to introduce more players into a diplomatic process that is already in a complex stage,” the newspaper quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying in a letter to The Elders.

Especially players whose end game is the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel.

In any event, leave it to Dan Gillerman to say what needs to be said.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, had a blunter rebuff.

“Nothing good could come out of this initiative,” he told Yediot. “Most members of the group, especially Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter, are people who nurse prejudices and have been shown to be hostile to Israel.”

This week, “human rights” group Physicians for Human Rights accused Israel of causing the deaths of sick palestinians by manipulating “security reasons” to reject their requests to cross the border for treatment in Israel or elsewhere.

Five Palestinians, including a one-year-old baby, have died in Gaza over the past two months after Israel rejected on security grounds or delayed their requests to cross the border for treatment in Israel or elsewhere, Physicians for Human Rights announced Thursday.

“The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) misuses and overuses security reasons for rejecting requests by Palestinians of all ages,” said PHR in a press statement. “These deaths point to the urgent need for public oversight of the ISA, which has been given unlimited power in this matter. These cases, like others, are examples of the fact that the manipulative use made of ’security’ by the ISA costs lives.”

These Physicians must be really good, given their G-d given abilities to treat the sick and read the minds of Shin Bet officials. Especially considering the fact that the Shin Bet seemingly have very good reasons to not automatically grant such requests.

Meanwhile, I’m guessing there could be a hell of a lot more such requests in coming weeks.

Palestinian health minister Fathi Abu Maghli confirmed on Friday that investigations are continuing into the smuggling of counterfeit medicines and expired food products that are being sold in the Palestinian market.

He added that a report will be issued within the next few days that will include data, facts and figures about the extent of the problem.

—-

He added that the majority of those involved in the smuggling of an estimated four tons of counterfeit medicines seized in the Ram this week have been arrested. He said it has been established that there is a link between all the smuggling gangs in the West Bank.

According to Abu Maghli, a large number of expired medicines were seized in Nablus on Thursday. He added that the quantity seized is estimated to be worth around two million US dollars and includes around 16 different kinds of medicines, including cancer treatments.

Needless to say, I’m not expecting Physicians for Human Rights to blame the palestinian smugglers in case these expired medicines and food products cause fatalities.

Hezbollah is still pointing the finger at Israel for the death of their senior terrorist Imad Mughniyah, claiming they have “proof”.

Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general Naim Qassem has again accused Israel of responsibility for the assassination of the organization’s senior military figure Imad Mughniyah.

In a speech Friday to mark the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed, Qassem said “we have clear proof, of 100 percent that cannot be doubted, that Israel is the head of the assassination.”

Qassem said there is no basis for the claim that others were behind the assassination. “Know that Israel is responsible and it must bear the whole responsibility,” the Hezbollah leader said.

One can only speculate what this proof is. Here are my top 5 guesses:

5. A note found near the body spelling his name as Mad Meshuggeneh.

4. A bottle of Manischewitz given to him moments before he was killed.

3. The “Z” (for “Zionist”) carved on his forehead

2. Traces of monkey hair left on the body.

1. No proof except Syrian denial of wrongdoing.