Answer: When palestinian sources are reporting it!

While Ma’an refers to the 16-year-old female who reportedly died of complications from injuries sustained during Operation Cast Lead as a “young woman,” IMEMC prefers the propaganda value of using the word “child” (not to mention the photo of a way-younger-than-16-year-old-girl)

Yet the IMEMC report does reveal something very interesting – the 16-year-old was being treated at Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital. And although that fact is mentioned in a negative light..

Her father, Kamal Abu Jalala, told the Safa News Agency that the administration at the Hadassah hospital is responsible for his daughter’s health, and added that the administration is refusing to grant him a photocopy of her medical file.

..just think about it for a few seconds. A palestinian has been treated in an Israeli hospital.

Now think about this for a few seconds: Would palestinians agree to treat an Israeli in one of their hospitals?

Yeah, me neither.

And guess what? He’s not innocent at all.

"My dad, the rocket scientist"

Hamas engineer Dirar Abu Sisi, nabbed by Israeli security forces earlier this year, provided interrogators with priceless information on Hamas’ modus operandi, the terror group’s readiness for a clash with Israel and attempts to improve its rocket range. 

According to interrogation excerpts, cleared for publication Thursday by the Beersheba District Court following Ynet’s appeal, the Hamas engineer described the terror group as an orderly hierarchical organization that aims to learn from its mistakes and adapt to changing regional realities.

The engineer told interrogators that following Operation Cast Lead Gaza, top Hamas terrorist Mohammed Deif and the group’s military wing commander Ahmed Jabari found Hamas’ operations to be lacking and decided to make Abu Sisi in charge of establishing the organization’s new military academy.

“An analysis of the war with Israel was undertaken. It found that a large number of Hamas activists ran away from their positions. A failure occurred in decision-making coupled with an inability to use arms during the battle – because of fear,” he said. “A program of study had to be created, in order to improve the situation.”

The new academy was tasked with imparting combat methods and tactics to Hamas terrorists, Abu Sisi said. Hamas men were undertaking their studies at mosques, while passing their final exams in known Gaza universities or in mosques.

“The books and academic materials did not bear the Hamas name or logo,” he said. Instructors include university lecturers, education ministry officials, merchants and others.

Abu Sisi is believed to be Hamas’ rocket expert. He joined the terror group in 2002, despite working for the Palestinian Electric Company, which forbade its employees from joining any group.

“I assisted Hamas in developing their missile capabilities, by identifying and handing over mathematical equations that improve the metal pipe’s ability to withstand pressure and heat,” he said. “I was present when a missile was test-fired at the sea in Khan Younis.”

The terror group was lacking materials that could improve their rocket range and later smuggled it in from Egypt through tunnels, he said.

Abu Sisi’s interrogation revealed that he acquired plenty of information on improving rocket range via the Internet, including the YouTube website.

“I know nothing about explosives. I only calculated the pressure and heat…I downloaded the formula from the Internet,” he said, adding that he also downloaded software pertaining to the rocket’s structure.

Hamas would send its activists for further instruction overseas, Abu Sisi said. Selected graduates of the academy reached military academies in foreign countries, he said, including Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Iran. 
   
During his interrogation, Abu Sisi expressed his regret for joining Hamas.

“I greatly regret my affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas Movement, my work to develop the missile range, my part in establishing Hamas’ military academy, and all the information I handed over to Hamas that can threaten the security of Israel and its citizens,” he said.

“I know the missiles are lethal and take the lives of others, without distinguishing between Arabs and Jews,” he said.

Abu Sisi was kidnapped in Kiev and brought to Israel in February. His indictment sheet comprises nine counts, including membership in a terror organization, murder, attempted murder and arms production.

It should be interesting to see how Silverstein handles this latest news. He will most likely insist that the confession was beaten out of him, and that he should be considered an innocent man…with a penchant for drawing swords.

One of Abu Sisi's diagrams (Photo: Ilana Curiel)

Update: I wasn’t far off at all.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2011/08/11/abusisi-to-shabak-i-left-gaza-because-hamas-threatened-me-and-my-children/

Silverstein can’t accept the confession and has to resort to inventing a convoluted scenario in which Hamas tip off the Shabak as revenge for Abu Sisi escaping from Gaza (but not before Silverstein admits Abu Sisi may have been somehow involved with Hamas). And in his rambling tale of fiction, he refers to the above drawing as a “crude drawing which looks more like a children’s sword than a rocket.”

Score!

Granted, his does it in a way to make himself look like a boy scout, and “blames” the incorrect conclusions of the report on Israel’s lack of cooperation, but this reversal nonetheless vindicates Israel.

We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.

The final report by the U.N. committee of independent experts — chaired by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis — that followed up on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report has found that “Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza” while “the de facto authorities (i.e., Hamas) have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.”

Our report found evidence of potential war crimes and “possibly crimes against humanity” by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.

The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.

For example, the most serious attack the Goldstone Report focused on was the killing of some 29 members of the al-Simouni family in their home. The shelling of the home was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack. While the length of this investigation is frustrating, it appears that an appropriate process is underway, and I am confident that if the officer is found to have been negligent, Israel will respond accordingly. The purpose of these investigations, as I have always said, is to ensure accountability for improper actions, not to second-guess, with the benefit of hindsight, commanders making difficult battlefield decisions.

While I welcome Israel’s investigations into allegations, I share the concerns reflected in the McGowan Davis report that few of Israel’s inquiries have been concluded and believe that the proceedings should have been held in a public forum. Although the Israeli evidence that has emerged since publication of our report doesn’t negate the tragic loss of civilian life, I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes.

Israel’s lack of cooperation with our investigation meant that we were not able to corroborate how many Gazans killed were civilians and how many were combatants. The Israeli military’s numbers have turned out to be similar to those recently furnished by Hamas (although Hamas may have reason to inflate the number of its combatants).

As I indicated from the very beginning, I would have welcomed Israel’s cooperation. The purpose of the Goldstone Report was never to prove a foregone conclusion against Israel. I insisted on changing the original mandate adopted by the Human Rights Council, which was skewed against Israel. I have always been clear that Israel, like any other sovereign nation, has the right and obligation to defend itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within. Something that has not been recognized often enough is the fact that our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations. I had hoped that our inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of evenhandedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted.

Some have charged that the process we followed did not live up to judicial standards. To be clear: Our mission was in no way a judicial or even quasi-judicial proceeding. We did not investigate criminal conduct on the part of any individual in Israel, Gaza or the West Bank. We made our recommendations based on the record before us, which unfortunately did not include any evidence provided by the Israeli government. Indeed, our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report. McGowan Davis has found that Israel has done this to a significant degree; Hamas has done nothing.

Some have suggested that it was absurd to expect Hamas, an organization that has a policy to destroy the state of Israel, to investigate what we said were serious war crimes. It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas would do so, especially if Israel conducted its own investigations. At minimum I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case. Hundreds more rockets and mortar rounds have been directed at civilian targets in southern Israel. That comparatively few Israelis have been killed by the unlawful rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in no way minimizes the criminality. The U.N. Human Rights Council should condemn these heinous acts in the strongest terms.

In the end, asking Hamas to investigate may have been a mistaken enterprise. So, too, the Human Rights Council should condemn the inexcusable and cold-blooded recent slaughter of a young Israeli couple and three of their small children in their beds.

I continue to believe in the cause of establishing and applying international law to protracted and deadly conflicts. Our report has led to numerous “lessons learned” and policy changes, including the adoption of new Israel Defense Forces procedures for protecting civilians in cases of urban warfare and limiting the use of white phosphorus in civilian areas. The Palestinian Authority established an independent inquiry into our allegations of human rights abuses — assassinations, torture and illegal detentions — perpetrated by Fatah in the West Bank, especially against members of Hamas. Most of those allegations were confirmed by this inquiry. Regrettably, there has been no effort by Hamas in Gaza to investigate the allegations of its war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

Simply put, the laws of armed conflict apply no less to non-state actors such as Hamas than they do to national armies. Ensuring that non-state actors respect these principles, and are investigated when they fail to do so, is one of the most significant challenges facing the law of armed conflict. Only if all parties to armed conflicts are held to these standards will we be able to protect civilians who, through no choice of their own, are caught up in war.

Israel is understandably pleased with Goldstone’s mea culpa.

Israeli officials expressed satisfaction Saturday with Judge Richard Goldstone’s regret for his report on Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the UN to retract the Goldstone report. “Everything we said was proven to be true. Israel did not willfully harm civilians,” Netanyahu explained, adding, “Israel’s investigating authorities are worthy, while Hamas investigated nothing. The fact that Goldstone withdrew his conclusions must lead to the retraction of the report once and for all.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Ynet that “the truth is clear, and cannot be questioned”.

“The price of dealing (with the report) over the past few years was worth it,” Lieberman said, adding that Goldstone’s backtracking renders all decisions by UN Human Rights Council about Israel null and void.

No word yet from Hamas, but Fatah terrorist Marwan Barghouti had this to say:

Released terrorist Marwan Barghouti claimed Judge Richard Goldstone’s retraction regarding his report on Israel and war crimes during the 2008 conflict in the Gaza Strip “serves the Israeli occupation.”

Barghouti said he is certain Goldstone stands behind his report: “He’s sure of what he wrote in the report. I believe he doesn’t regret it.”

Looks like Barghouti is finding it hard to face reality, as is Ynet, who referred to him as “released” (he is thankfully still languishing behind bars. Ok, not exactly languishing).

Others on Goldstone’s reversal:

Ron Radosh calls this a “stunning re-evaluation of his own report”, but recognizes the underhanded way he tries to make it look like he is not reversing himself

Jeffrey Goldberg calls the reversal “shocking” and “unexpected”, but notes “it is somewhat difficult to retract a blood libel, once it has been broadcast across the world.”

David Horovitz of the Jerusalem Post is not impressed, saying “the sanctimonious judge put all of our lives at greater risk.”

Long-time Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi said Monday in an interview with TV network France 24 that his violent crackdown on opposition protesters is akin to Israel’s efforts to defend itself from extremism during its 2009 Gaza war against Hamas.

Libya has come under international scrutiny in recent weeks, in response to violent clashes between the Libyan military and anti-Gadhafi rebels, confrontations which caused what are estimated to be hundreds of deaths.

On Monday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon dispatched a team to Tripoli to assess the humanitarian situation in the wake of the Libyan crisis, criticizing the Libya military’s “disproportionate use of force.”

Speaking with France 24 later Monday, however, Gadhafi defended his military’s right to oppress rebel activity, comparing his crackdown to Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2009, saying that “even the Israelis in Gaza, when they moved into the Gaza strip, they moved in with tanks to fight such extremists.”

“It’s the same thing here! We have small armed groups who are fighting us. We did not use force from the outset… Armed units of the Libyan army have had to fight small armed al Qaida bands. That is what’s happened,” Gadhafi said.

Referring to the purported number of casualties in wake of fighting in Libya, the long-time leader claimed “there have been at most 150 to 200 people killed.”

Of course, the sanity-challenged one was marching to a different drum doing Operation Cast Lead.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Sunday accused Arab leaders of a “cowardly” response to Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

He said they had failed to support the Palestinians in the enclave beyond offering humanitarian aid or discussing a possible Arab summit.

“These characters should be ashamed of themselves. They are trading on the name of the Palestinian cause with their cowardly, weak and defeatist stands,” said Gaddafi, referring to Arab leaders and their attempts to find a common position on the Israeli raids.

—-

Gaddafi said it would be better if Arab leaders did nothing or said nothing until they were able to come up with measures to deter Israel from attacking Palestinians.

“Arabs are the ones who need peace, not the Israelis who live in peace. Who are dying in their dozens and hundreds? They are Arabs,” he added.

 And he’s on record as supporting Hamas.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Friday expressed support for the Palestinian people under Hamas rule. A report released in the Libyan press announced that Tripoli would continue to assist the Palestinian people in their just struggle to establish a state.

In fact, less than a year ago, Hamas invited Gaddafi to visit.

Why the change? Perhaps he’s pissed at Hamas’ stance on his crackdown. Or alternatively, he knows he’s not the most popular person at the moment, and wants to take Israel down with him.

Update: Still on the subject of Gaddafi and Israel, ant-Gaddafi rebels seized British special forces and intelligence agents – thinking they were Mossad!

A British diplomatic effort to reach out to Libyan rebels has ended in humiliation as a team of British special forces and intelligence agents left Benghazi after being briefly detained.

The six SAS troops and two MI6 officers were seized by Libyan rebels in the eastern part of the country after arriving by helicopter four days ago. They left on HMS Cumberland, the frigate that had docked in Benghazi to evacuate British and other EU nationals as Libya lurched deeper into conflict. The diplomatic team’s departure marked a perfunctory end to a bizarre and botched venture.

“I can confirm that a small British diplomatic team has been in Benghazi,” said William Hague, the foreign secretary. “The team went to Libya to initiate contacts with the opposition. They experienced difficulties, which have now been satisfactorily resolved. They have now left Libya.”

Audio of a telephone conversation between the UK’s ambassador to Libya, Richard Northern, and a senior rebel leader was later leaked.

Northern suggested in the call that the SAS team had been detained due to a misunderstanding.

The rebel leader responded: “They made a big mistake, coming with a helicopter in an open area.”

Northern said: “I didn’t know how they were coming.”

Despite the failure of the mission, Hague indicated that Britain would continue to try to make contact with the opposition.

“We intend, in consultation with the opposition, to send a further team to strengthen our dialogue in due course,” he said. “This diplomatic effort is part of the UK’s wider work on Libya, including our ongoing humanitarian support. We continue to press for Gaddafi to step down and we will work with the international community to support the legitimate ambitions of the Libyan people.”

According to Guardian sources, the British intelligence and special forces unit were caught near the al-Khadra Farm Company, 18 miles (30km) south-west of Benghazi. A senior member of Benghazi’s revolutionary council said: “They were carrying espionage equipment, reconnaissance equipment, multiple passports and weapons. This is no way to conduct yourself during an uprising.

“Gaddafi is bringing in thousands of mercenaries to kill us, most are using foreign passports and how do we know who these people are?

“They say they’re British nationals and some of the passports they have are British. But the Israelis used British passports to kill that man in Dubai last year.“

Ooga booga!

Update: More on the bungled mission:

An opposition spokesman in Benghazi has told reporters that rebels refused to talk to the British delegation because of the way they entered the country.

The team is said to have entered without prior arrangement in the dead of night, carrying guns, explosives, and passports of multiple nationalities.

British forces using fake passports? Where’s the outrage?

Hypocrites.

REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

Yesterday, I posted how Hamas admitted losing 200-300 terrorists during Operation Cast Lead, based on this report.

And other reports declared the same thing.

There’s only one problem. If you actually read the reports carefully (or even not that carefully), you will see they admitted to losing way more terrorists than this.

Fathi Hamad told the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat that “They say it was the people who paid the toll of that war, but aren’t we [Hamas] part of this people?”

He added: “Furthermore, on the second day of the war, Israel targeted police headquarters and 250 martyrs fell and they were affiliated to Hamas and other factions. In addition, about 200-300 members of Al-Qassam Brigades died martyrs as well as 150 security officers; the rest of the victims were civilians.”

250 +(200 or 300) + 150 = 600 or 700.

This accords with the 709 figure provided by the IDF, a figure poo-pooed by Goldstone.

Thanks to Carl for the math lesson.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:05PM: There is currently a live Q&A with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. Go here to ask your questions (and tell them Aussie Dave sent you j/k)

4:52PM: Today is the 93rd anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

During the First World War, British policy became gradually committed to the idea of establishing a Jewish home in Palestine (Eretz Yisrael). After discussions in the British Cabinet, and consultation with Zionist leaders, the decision was made known in the form of a letter by Arthur James Lord Balfour to Lord Rothschild. The letter represents the first political recognition of Zionist aims by a Great Power.

Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour

Meanwhile, Hamas has banned a Balfour declaration-related demonstration in Gaza.

Bonus: Terrorists are complaining about “a violation of freedom of speech.”

Mahmoud Zak, an official with the tiny Palestinian Popular Struggle Front said the group had planned to hold a protest outside the United Nations compound in Gaza City.

Zak said he informed government officials in advance. But, he said, a Hamas security official called him at midnight Monday to inform him that the demonstration would not be allowed to proceed. “We were surprised by the decision of the internal security to ban the protest where we wanted to deliver a speech on this occasion and hand over a petition to the United Nations in Gaza, something that does not affect them [Hamas].”

Zak said he considered the ban “a violation of freedom of speech.”

4:10PM: ADL National Director Abe Foxman has arrived at the conclusion that Jimmy Carter is still a prick.

Former President Jimmy Carter continues to make biased remarks about Israel, despite a public apology via JTA late last year, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

In an Op-Ed distributed Monday, ADL National Director Abe Foxman charged that “Rather than focusing on Israel as the only democracy in the region, the one that protects individual rights, including for women and gays, through the rule of law and that has been under siege from the Arab world since its birth, Mr. Carter views the Jewish state through the prism of Western guilt for centuries of racism, colonialism and supremacist ideas.”

Carter in a public apology published last December by JTA rued his comments “stigmatizing Israel” and implied that he would refrain from such remarks in the future.

“In sum, by any objective measurement, Mr. Carter has gone back on his public word to the Jewish community not to stigmatize the Jewish state,” Foxman wrote.

Foxman pointed to Carter’s recent visit to the Middle East with a delegation of The Elders in which “The majority and intensity of his criticisms … were directed at Israel.”

“I want to take Mr. Carter at his word when he made his statement. He may well have intended to apologize for the hurt he may have caused, and he may really have believed that he would in the future act differently,” Foxman wrote in conclusion.

“The fact that he hasn’t doesn’t have to signal disingenuousness as much as how really difficult true atonement is. It takes not only a statement of commitment but, critically, a change in one’s thinking. Unfortunately, Mr. Carter’s worldview works against Israel and leads to the bias we have seen time and again.”

1:02PM: The Hamashole who admitted that hundreds of his fellow terrorists were killed in Operation Cast Lead has a history of opening his big mouth (hat tip: juvanya)

Keep gabbing.

12:58PM: Hizbullah is reportedly planning to seize power if when the UN Hariri tribunal implicate the group in the assassination of the former prime minister.

The report said that Hizbullah, Amal and other pro-Syrian groups were in close contact and coordination relating to a plan to take control of Beirut, the road to the south of the city, and neutralizing Christian and Sunni areas. The sources said that the groups were already plotting zones of who would control which areas, in a day-after scenario.

According to the sources, Beirut was divided into three zones of military control, allocated to Amal, Hizbullah and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and that alternative plans were prepared by Hizbullah for a scenario where the other groups could not hold control of their zones.

Additionally, the report indicated that the “zero hour” refers to a scenario in which indictments are issued by the Hariri tribunal, followed by civil unrest in the streets of the Lebanese capital devolving into violence and a security vacuum.

The report, quoting retired Lebanese Brig.-Gen. Amin Hattit who is known to be close to Hizbullah, said that the plans contained many realistic elements. He said that Hizbullah’s current strategy is to prevent strife, but if they are unable to prevent an explosion of unrest, they will take advantage. He said, “Everyone knows that the temptation will be limited geographically to areas where there is a Shi’ite majority,” referring to areas of Beirut, the Bekaa Valley region, and the south of the country.

Hattit concluded that “if this scenario does take place, Hizbullah would be able to seize power in three days, or a week at most,” and that the “era of Hariri in Lebanon” would end forever.

10:05AM: Still on the subject of palestinian prisoners, this next story is quite simply remarkable (hat tip: Shy Guy, juvanya).

As more details on the story of an Palestinian Authority Arab ex-con on his way to converting to Judaism are revealed, the more astonishing it becomes.

Yaniv Ben-David, an Arab from the PA territories and Haifa whose official name until recently was Busmon Abu-Ras, found Judaism and G-d while serving a 12-year term in prison. The full miraculous story has come out in three interviews, including one with Arutz-7’s Hizky Ezra [which can be seen here, in Hebrew] and another on Radio Kol Chai with the head of the Civil Administration, Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai, known as Poli.

Yaniv’s speech is liberally sprinkled with “May G-d’s Name be blessed” and the like, as if he had grown up all his life in a traditional Sephardic neighborhood. But in actuality, his story is very different. Without getting into details, he explains that he became involved in criminal activity of which today he is very ashamed, but that once in jail, no one in his family ever visited him. “My crime was not related to terrorism, Heaven forbid, chas veshalom,” he says, “but I don’t want to discuss it.”

“Some of the Jews in prison with me,” he relates, “began talking to me, and said things like, ‘There’s something special about you, something that doesn’t seem to belong to that world that you came from… You seem to have a spark of Jewishness… Specifically, one very special guy began teaching me about Judaism, and little by little, I began to enter the world of holiness and Torah and the Chosen Nation, etc., may G-d’s Name be blessed…”

At the same time, however, that he was undergoing changes in his religious outlook and identity, the prison authorities were preparing him for another change: Early release from jail, back into the areas of the Palestinian Authority – where he knew there were many who would seek to kill him for his connections with Jews and Israelis.

Here’s where Providence stepped in. Gen. Mordechai relates:

“I was driving shortly before midnight on Route 443 to Modiin where I live, when I saw a strange sight at the checkpoint, and I stopped; apparently, everything is truly from Heaven. I saw this young man, Yaniv, crying and sobbing at the checkpoint, and he told me an amazing story – of how he had come close to Judaism while in prison, and how all his requests and pleas to be recognized as a former prisoner whose life would be endangered in the PA were turned down, including from the Supreme Court. I had trouble believing this, but I saw him quoting Biblical verses and all… Meanwhile, he was stuck at the checkpoint; the soldiers wouldn’t let him cross, and he refused to enter the PA. I did some quick checking with the social worker in the prison and with the prison rabbi, and they said very complimentary things about him, such as that he had been released for good behavior, and how sincere he was… I had no immediate solution for him, but I was able to have him brought to a nearby IDF base for a couple of days, and then, after some not-simple struggles with the Shabak and other bodies, we were able to find a place for him…”

Yaniv is now studying and living at a yeshiva in Jerusalem, whose name and location he will not disclose.

Both Gen. Mordechai and Yaniv do not cease to express their amazement at the Divine providence of the story. Yaniv said, “Poli is truly an agent of G-d, blessed be His Name, sent specifically to save me. He is a true tzaddik [righteous person]…” Asked what he would have done had Poli not happened by at that time, he said, “I would have waited there all night, and put on my tefillin in the morning…”

“I was standing there at the checkpoint, I saw two Palestinians coming close to me – I was afraid not only for my life, but even more that maybe they would take my tefillin! For them to take my holiness, the holiness of G-d, I couldn’t take it!..  But I said, If G-d wants me to put on tefillin next to these Palestinians, I’ll do it!  I stood and screamed out, Shma Yisrael, Hear O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One!”

“…And then G-d sent Poli to save me. I had already been rejected by all the courts, and I went to the synagogue and said, ‘G-d, thank You for all you have given me – the good and the bad. If this is Your will, that I return and have to die for the Sanctification of Your Name, then I’ll do it… But G-d sent Poli; G-d never abandons anyone who doesn’t abandon Him, Blessed be His Name forever.”

Yaniv, who is towards the end of his formal conversion process, says he does not know exactly when he will become an official Jew. “Meanwhile, I’m enjoying learning Talmud, praying, etc… When I pray the Amidah, it is not from this world; I see lights…” He acted as the gabbai (sexton) of the prison synagogue. “Gathering people for the prayers, setting up the prayer books – this is where I feel my holiness, this is my blood, this is my life, nothing else, may G-d’s Name be blessed.”

He related, as well, that he was forced to withstand many difficult situations in prison: “G-d sent me many tests, but I believe that, with His help, may He be blessed, I was able to stand up to them.” On the day of his release, the deputy commander of the prison, a Bedouin, wanted to cut off his sidelocks – customarily grown long by Hassidic and other religious Jews. “I told him, without fear: You can kill me, you can do anything you want – but no one will ever touch my sidelocks, my holiness. I didn’t care about anything; it was unthinkable that I would lose my holiness, my sidelocks… How could it be that someone wanted to take my holiness!”

Yaniv related that when he first began to observe Jewish customs in jail, “there were some goyim there [Arabs] who mocked me, and even threatened me. I couldn’t understand those people, that nation: I find something for my soul, why should they care? … But I was not afraid. I felt that I would rather die to sanctify G-d’s name, than not be observant.”

He said that he hopes to continue studying in Yeshiva, and in the future, to possibly give lectures about Judaism and Torah: “The Jewish people – for some reason, I just don’t know why – many of these holy people don’t observe G-d’s will. I hope I can help them to truly return to G-d, and bring the Messiah – who is here, by the way; as soon as everyone observes two Sabbaths, he will be revealed… This is a very difficult generation, a very, very hard generation, G-d knows, there are very strong temptations. But the place in which stands someone who returns to G-d, even a righteous person cannot stand…”

“I want to tell all of Israel: Just like a convert loves G-d with all his heart – I do His will with all my heart, He performed great kindnesses for me, and I serve Him with all my essence, with perfect faith and with serenity, even though I went through many tests – so too G-d loves Israel… G-d took care of me. G-d never abandons anyone; we just have to try to perform His will; give Him an opening the size of a needle [as the Sages say – ed.] and He will open entire worlds for us…”

9:16AM: A palestinian prisoner released from an Israeli jail is interviewed by PA television.

When he says they “lack nothing”, what he apparently means is they lack nothing when it comes to torture and pain.

Libelous drawings depicting fictitious “Israeli torture” are part of the new introduction to a PA TV program for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and their families.

Purporting to show how Palestinian prisoners are tortured by Israel, the drawings portray Israeli prison guards:

1- Burning into a prisoner’s chest with a hot iron;
2- Drilling a hole through a prisoner’s hand;
3- Burning into a prisoner’s shoulder with a soldering iron;
4- Whipping a prisoner while hanging him by his feet ;
5- Squeezing a prisoner’s head in a medieval looking head press;
6- Chopping off a prisoner’s arm below the elbow;
7- Hanging a prisoner by his arms while chains pull from his chest and neck.

Broadcast twice a week, the program For You is aimed at Palestinians imprisoned for terror offenses in Israeli prisons, where they watch the program. It includes footage from the prisoners’ home villages and interviews with their family members, who send them televised messages.

PA TV is controlled by the office of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

It should be noted that no accusations about this kind of treatment have ever been made against Israel by the International Red Cross, by human rights groups or by Palestinian prisoners themselves.

In a striking irony, in the same week that the PA started to disseminate these libelous drawings on TV, an article in the official PA daily indicated that the prisons are very different than these libels portray. It stated that Palestinian prisoners are given educational opportunities. The PA daily celebrated how “prisoners in occupation [Israeli] prisons complete university studies and obtain MA and Ph.D. degrees,” and proudly cited that “since 2000 more than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners have attained matriculation certificates while still in the occupation prisons.” [Transcript below]

A Palestinian man suspected of involvement in the shooting attack yesterday evening was arrested overnight by IDF forces. The shooting attack took place yesterday evening on the route leading from Har Gilo to Jerusalem, causing damage to an Israeli vehicle.

Following immediate searches in the area, an IDF force started a chase leading to the arrest of the suspect, Muhaned Muhamed Mahmud Aze, a 34 year old man from Betlehem in less than two hours from the incident. The suspect was questioned on the scene and confessed to taking an active role in the attack. He was arrested and taken for questioning by the ISA.

Ha’aretz adds some details, including that the man is an alleged Hamashole, as well as the slightly relevant fact that the majority of Hamas’ activities in Judea and Samaria are being orchestrated by terrorists  formerly imprisoned in Israel, who returned to terrorism after being released.

Israeli security forces have arrested a Palestinian militant apparently linked to Hamas suspected of carrying out a shooting attack on an Israeli car near the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Saturday night.

The Israel Defense Forces’ Central Command believes that the incident, which occurred in an area relatively free of security violations, shows that Hamas has plans to carry out future attacks in the West Bank.

Security forces began combing the area immediately after the incident. The car in question had been driving in the area south of Jerusalem when its back end was hit by gunfire. None of the passengers of the car were hurt.

The security forces found a backpack containing a Kalishnakov rifle and on Sunday reported that an arrest had been made.

Four Israeli civilians were killed about two months ago in a shooting attack in the West Bank. Both that attack and two more shootings that occurred within days after and wounded several Israelis were carried out by Hamas.

About three weeks ago, Israeli security forces killed a number of militants from the Hamas cell behind those attacks and arrested several others.

The IDF believes that the majority of Hamas’ activities in the West Bank are being orchestrated by Palestinian militants formerly imprisoned in Israel, who returned to terrorism after being released over the last few years.

These cells are linked to Hamas commanders in both Damascus and in the Gaza Strip. Due to the successes of the IDF and the Shin Bet in cracking down on the Hamas infrastructure in the West Bank in recent years, the commanders have had a harder time keep in contact with these cells and many of the orders have been passed on through family members in a less organized fashion than before.

These cells have also had a harder time harboring weapons and ammunition, due to mass raids by the IDF and Palestinian Authority security forces.

But the Central Command believes that the Hamas cells are still intent on carrying out shooting attacks, and the IDF, Shin Bet and PA forces have intensified their crackdowns.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

4:46PM: The good:

Lonely Planet this week named Tel Aviv third in a list of the world’s best cities, praising the coastal metropolis for its art and music scenes and relaxed, liberal culture.

Tel Aviv came in third, with New York the somewhat predictable winner, and the Moroccan city of Tangier a surprising second. Iquitos on the Peruvian Amazon and Ghent in Belgium were also improbable entrants to the top 10.

The bad:

“Tel Aviv is the total flipside of Jerusalem, a modern Sin City on the sea rather than an ancient Holy City on a hill,” the publisher of popular travel guides said on its website. “Hedonism is the one religion that unites its inhabitants. There are more bars than synagogues, God is a DJ and everyone’s body is a temple.”

The ugly:

3:48PM: Video of the medal ceremony (including Hatikva) after Sergio Britva won gold in the World Masters Weightlifting in Poland.

Bonus: The Iranian came in second.

Not nice: The Iranian refuses to shake Britva’s hand.

Sweet: The Iranian has to stand quietly throughout the Hatikva. Booya!

1:22PM: Pamela Anderson, due soon in Israel to make a guest appearance in the Israeli version of Dancing with the Stars, gets interviewed on Israeli television.

Meanwhile, she is already getting involved in “politics.”

Former “Baywatch” star and Playboy cover girl Pamela Anderson is now involved in…Israeli politics.

Israeli Daily newspaper Yediot Aronoth reported this week that a letter written by the Hollywood star and noted animal rights activist was received at the office of Israel’s Minister of Religious Services, Ya’akov Margi,  of the religious  political party of Shas.

Anderson, who is due to visit Israel in a few weeks to make a guest appearance in the Israeli version of popular TV show “Dancing with the Stars”,  asked the minister to support a ground-breaking  bill that would ban the use of animal fur for the making of clothes, hats and other products in the Jewish State.

“I urge you to support this historic bill and speak up for the millions of animals who are bludgeoned, electrocuted, and skinned alive for their pelts each year” beseeched Anderson in her letter.

She also implored him to watch a graphic video from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

No word on the minister’s response to the Hollywood starlet but according to the report, the minister has asked for the bill to be re-examined  due to the fact that many ultra-orthodox Jews living in Israel traditionally choose to cover their heads with large hats made of sable tails.

The distinctive head covering, called the streimel,  is worn by male adherents of various Jewish sects and is usually donned on the sabbath or high holidays.

While the market for the hats is small the price tags are not – milliners can fetch up to $5000 per streimel.

The sable covered hat is believed to have originated some 500 years ago in Russia after a government decree that all Jews identify themselves by attaching an animal’s tail to their skull caps. What began as a humiliation eventually turned into accepted fashion spreading throughout the Jewish communities in Europe.

I wonder if she will meet with the Minister of Religious Services while she is here. Now that would make for a great photo.

1:15PM: In the wake of the synagogue bombing plot last week, it has been revealed that Israel received warning of it before it was reported in the news, and has been reacting accordingly.

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz hinted Monday that Israel received warning of the intent to send bombs to US synagogues on Thursday, before the plot was revealed to the public on the following day.

“Since Thursday Israeli representatives have been on location in sensitive airports around the world, securing shipments to Israel,” he said ahead of a large-scale drill at Ben Gurion International Airport.

“Reality is catching up to us, and we must prepare in order to prevent the worst of all scenarios. We are prepared to deal with a threat now recognized by the whole world. All airlines that fly to Israel are obligated to use the best security measures.”

Katz says he has been trying to persuade Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to establish a national security agency, such as that operating in the US, which would “transfer the security of Israeli flights worldwide, as airlines like El Al want, to the hands of the state”.

10:42AM: Hamas has confirmed that 200-300 of its members were killed during Operation Cast Lead – way more than the 50 they had previously claimed – and that the so-called “police officers” killed during the first day of the operation were actually 250 Hamasholes.

Israel Radio indicated that these figures were consistent with the numbers initially reported by the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit immediately following the operation, which Hamas denied.

Remember the Goldstone Report?

34. To examine whether the attacks against the police were compatible with the principle of distinction between civilian and military objects and persons, the Mission analysed the institutional development of the Gaza police since Hamas took complete control of Gaza in July 2007 and merged the Gaza police with the “Executive Force” it had created after its election victory. The Mission finds that, while a great number of the Gaza policemen were recruited among Hamas supporters or members of Palestinian armed groups, the Gaza police were a civilian law-enforcement agency. The Mission also concludes that the policemen killed on 27 December 2008 cannot be said to have been taking a direct part in hostilities and thus did not lose their civilian immunity from direct attack as civilians on this ground. The Mission accepts that there may be individual members of the Gaza police that were at the same time members of Palestinian armed groups and thus combatants. It concludes, however, that the attacks against thepolice facilities on the first day of the armed operations failed to strike an acceptable balance between the direct military advantage anticipated (i.e. the killing of those policemen who may have been members of Palestinian armed groups) and the loss of civilian life (i.e. the other policemen killed and members of the public who would inevitably have been present or in the vicinity), and therefore violated international humanitarian law.

Then, later on (after citing the palestinian NGO casualty claims during Operation Cast Lead, including the 248 police officers, as well as the IDF’s claims these “police officers” were terrorists), it states:

361. The Mission notes that the statistics from non-governmental sources are generally consistent. Statistics alleging that fewer than one out of five persons killed in an armed conflict was a combatant, such as those provided by PCHR and Al Mezan as a result of months of field research,224 raise very serious concerns about the way Israel conducted the military operations in Gaza. The counterclaims published by the Government of Israel fall far short of international law standards.

In other words, this latest Hamas admission further puts Goldstone to shame.

Meanwhile, who said Hamas doesn’t have a sense of humor?

Hamad also denied allegations that al-Qaida operatives were active in Gaza. “We are moderate people, and we don’t like extremists or fanatics,” he told Al-Hayat. “We don’t need weapons or Jihad fighters – anyone who wants to help us can send money.”

6:05AM: PMW shines a light on the latest shenanigans of our “peace partners.”

A history program on official Palestinian Authority television has repeated an odious PA distortion of history.

Since its inception, the PA has been rewriting the history of Zionism, teaching that the Jews came to Israel not because of their historical ties to the land, but because Europe wanted to be rid of “the burden of its Jews,” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 12, 1998] and “wanted to get rid of the Jews and their problems,” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 15, 2009].

This message has appeared again in a PA TV history program, Witnesses and Testimonies. The program featured two Jordanian academics, who explained that the Jews’ behavior had been “harmful” to Europeans because of the Jews’ “great love of money.” They cited Shakespeare’s fictitious character, the moneylender Shylock, as proof of this “harmful” Jewish trait.

“This is how they harmed the societies that embraced them,” one of the academics explained.

Because they obviously stand for truth and care about us.

Reuters

Hamas on Sunday accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of “misleading” Israelis by creating the false impression that there was some kind of progress in negotiations for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.

In an early morning interview with Army Radio, Netanyahu confirmed that contacts started anew a number of weeks ago to gain the young man’s release.

“There has been a renewal of contact with the German negotiator,” he said, adding that his office is dealing with the Schalit dossier on a continuous basis in a variety of ways.

The central channel, he said, is “negotiation [through the German mediator] that started a number of weeks ago.” Netanyahu would not offer any details of the talks.

Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Lebanon, told Al-Jazeera that Netanyahu’s talk about progress was aimed at “easing domestic pressure on his government.”

His words came after Channel 2 reported on Saturday that German mediator Gerhard Konrad traveled to Gaza three weeks ago to speak with Hamas about a deal for Schalit.

Hamdan confirmed that a German mediator had visited the Gaza Strip recently in another bid to achieve a breakthrough, but to no avail.

“Hamas informed the German mediator that it won’t make any concessions on its demands and there would be no return to phase zero of the talks,” Hamdan said.

He added that the mediator, whom he did not name, did not bring anything new and had only a few meetings during his stay in the Gaza Strip.

Holding Netanyahu responsible for the lack of progress in efforts to reach a prisoner-exchange agreement, the Hamas official said: “Hamas’s position is very clear. The negotiations and discussions must be resumed from the point where they stopped. We won’t return to stage zero.”

Sources close to Hamas in the Gaza Strip said that the main differences between the two sides remain over whether Israel should release Israeli Arab prisoners and those who carried out big terrorist attacks.

The sources said that Hamas and Israel would still need months to bridge the gap between them.

Meanwhile, a a senior General Staff officer has warned that our response to the kidnapping of another soldier into Gaza will be no less severe than Operation Cast lead.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:02PM: BREAKING NEWS: Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah lies.

The Israel Defense Forces is taking aim at a new claim by Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah who last week presented what he said was an Israeli rifle to visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Nasrallah said the weapon, placed in a felt-lined box with a row of bullets, was captured during the guerrilla group’s 2006 war with Israel.

Israeli military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich said Sunday the gun appears to be an assault rifle that Israel hasn’t used since 1974 – meaning it likely wasn’t captured during the war.

Ahmadinejad had met with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah at Iran’s embassy in Beirut prior to the Iranian leader’s departure from Lebanon.

Who’d have thought?

8:35PM: UN: Bla bla bla bla.

8:12PM: Israel’s answer to SpongeBob SquarePants?

MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images

8:05PM: Israel has invited the 33 rescued Chilean miners to Israel.

Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov on Monday extended an official invitation to the 33 Chilean miners who were rescued last week to experience a “spiritual journey” this Christmas in the Holy Land.

The men, who were trapped underground for 68 days in a mine in Chile, are invited to Israel with their spouses for a week-long, all-expense paid sightseeing tour of various sites holy to Christianity.

“Your bravery and strength of spirit, your great faith that helped you survive so long in the bowels of the earth, was an inspiration to us all,” the tourism minister wrote in his invitation. “It would be a great honor for us to welcome you as our guests in the Holy Land.”

“This December, Christians around the world – and here in the Land of Jesus – will celebrate Christmas. During that time, we welcome tens of thousands of pilgrims and we would be pleased to offer you this uplifting and extraordinary experience, as our guests.”

No word yet on whether mistresses are also invited.

5:26PM: A sculpture of comatose former PM Ariel Sharon has gone on display.

3:45PM: What, me funny? According to the blurb on YouTube, this next video is:

The first episode of the USAID-funded cartoon campaign for the Palestinian Authority, designed by PACE and developed by Sketch in Motion, Inc.

This episode is about public transportation, and sends a message to the public about safety on the roads in a humorous way. Join us as Abu Awad dodges shawarma restaurants and crazy drivers on his way through the West Bank.

I guess we all have different ideas about humor.

12:52PM: Here in Israel, something happened last week that is only slightly more likely than peace in the Middle East.

Statisticians said the probability was abysmal, conspiracy theorists said the game was rigged, but some lucky gamblers believed this could happen: In an odds-defying incident, Saturday night’s state lottery numbers were an almost identical repeat of the lottery numbers from September 21. Ninety-five people picked the lucky combination and won.

The numbers that rolled out during a live studio broadcast this past Saturday, in lottery number 2194 of Miphal HaPayis, Israel’s state lottery, were 36, 33, 32, 26, 14, 13, and an additional ‘strong’ number 2. Moments after the celebration in the studio, curious web surfers were amazed to notice that these same numbers happened to roll out less than a month ago; on September 21, in lottery number 2187, the winning numbers were 13, 14, 26, 32, 33, 36, and a ‘strong’ number of 1. The order in which the numbers were picked was reversed.

“We are in the business of luck, and when it comes to chances and probabilities anything is possible, even the rare and infrequent, like in this case,” said Dr. Chaim Melamed, the statistics expert for Miphal HaPayis.

Three players guessed all seven numbers correctly, including the ‘strong’ number, and won NIS 4 million ($1,116,694) each. This is the highest numbers of first prize winners since 2006. Ninety-two players guessed a combination of six numbers correctly, and won NIS 4,000-NIS 6,561 ($1,116-$1,831) each.

Melamed stated that people often gamble on numbers that won previously. “I assume it’s like the people who hang on to birthdays,” he said. “There are people that hang on to numbers that were picked in the past. This time, this wish was fulfilled. It’s rare, but it’s still luck.”

Trillion-to-one chance

According to Zvi Gilula, a professor of statistics at the Hebrew University, getting all seven lottery numbers exactly correct, under normal circumstances, is one in 18 million. Guessing six numbers correctly, excluding the ‘strong’ number, is one to 2,250,000.

Gilula, an expert on gambling, estimated the probability of the same set of numbers being randomly picked twice a few weeks apart is no higher than one in 4 trillion, or 0.00000000000025.

“Usually, this is the type of numbers they use to describe the probability of life on Mars,” Gilula said.

Yitzhak Melechson, a professor of statistics at the University of Tel Aviv, said that the incident of six numbers repeating themselves within a month is an event of once in 10,000 years, and addressed the issue of a mishap.

“A bend in the lottery machine is a much more complex issue. If certain numbers were repeated more often it could attest to something, but it’s not the case in the repeated sextet.”

9:36AM: This next story is sure to disappoint many.

Some 11,500 students, among them 500 Arab and Druze Israelis, began the academic year Sunday at the Ariel University Center of Samaria, which is located in the West Bank, beyond the Green Line.

“I scored high on my psychometric exam and could have enrolled in Tel Aviv University and other institutions, but here the enrollment process was quicker. This was the first place that accepted me, so I decided to go for it,” said 20-year-old Tayibe resident Manar Diuani, who is studying computer science.

A group of prominent Israeli artists recently caused a public uproar when they drafted a letter declaring their refusal to perform in Ariel’s new cultural hall for political reasons.

Diuani, an Arab-Israeli, told Ynet the settlement issue does not concern her. “I separate studies from politics. I don’t think where I go to school will matter to anyone – only my grades and diploma will matter.”

Another Arab student, who chose to remain anonymous, said, “We did not come here because of the ideology; we came here to get an education, and we don’t want to link this to politics.”

Asad, 25, from the Druze village Hurfish, was recently discharged from the IDF after serving as an officer in a secret unit. He rents a room at the university’s dorms and is studying for a BA degree in civil engineering. “I didn’t take the psychometric exam, so the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) was out of the question. Beersheba is too far, and as a family man I wanted to stay close by,” said Asad, who is married with a daughter.

“Ariel is a large city that has existed for many years and will continue to exist without me. In this case, politics is pushed to the side,” he told Ynet.

Joana Moussa, a 20-year-old behavioral sciences student from Abu Snan, an Arab village in the Galilee region, said politics does play a role. “All of the students in Ariel fear the day will come when they’ll be told their diploma cannot be recognized because they studied in the territories. But as of today, our diploma is recognized everywhere.

“I am very pleased because the professors give us personal attention and there is no racism here. Perhaps in other places people would have commented on my name or ethnicity, but here I’m accepted for who I am,” she said.

Some three years ago Ariel College was recognized as a “university center,” a move that drew harsh criticism from leftist groups.

Bring on the boycott!

6:14AM: An anti-Israel campaigner rewrites history as he explains why Britain supported Zionism, including claims both Balfour and Churchill were “vicious antisemites.”

Of course, our intrepid historian is himself not antisemitic – just anti-Zionist – even as he explains that “Herzl, the founder of Zionism, promised that he would take the Jews away from these [revolutionary] movements and make them into colonists who would go and pillage other countries”

‘U.S.-Israel relations at their worst in 35 years’
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has told the country’s diplomats there that U.S.-Israeli relations face their worst crisis in 35 years, despite attempts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to project a sense of “business as usual.”

I hate Mondays.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:10PM: Quote of the day:

“You who are opening Hurva are heading towards ruin. Wherever you have been you’ve been sent to your destruction. You’ve killed and murdered your prophets and you have always dealt in loan-sharking and destruction.”

- Head Hamashole Mahmoud al-Zahar demonstrating that Hamas is not antisemitic, just anti-Israel

8:45PM: BREAKING NEWS: Backbone sighted.

8:32PM: The palestinians have gotten their panties in a bunch over the latest Israeli “provocation.”

Rededicating a synagogue destroyed by the Jordanians 60 years ago.

AP

Personal status courts in the West Bank and Jerusalem will strike Monday and Tuesday in protest over the rededication of the Hurva Synagogue, officials announced.

The ceremonies at the synagogue, 330 meters away from the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, have been called a “provocation” in the wake of an Israeli raid on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the declaration of two Palestinian mosques as “Israeli heritage sites” on 21 February.

“The synagogue is not located near the Temple Mount compound,” an Israeli government news release replied to the accusations.

—-

The Palestinian Higher Judicial Council, headed by Supreme Judge Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi, released a statement calling on “Palestinian people everywhere, especially those who live in Jerusalem and in other cities inside Israel,” to head to Jerusalem to protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque from Ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups, which the statement said planned a raid on the compound following the synagogue rededication.

Tamimi accused Israeli leaders of plotting to lay the cornerstone of the “Third Temple,” following the rededication, in what he called the first move in the planned destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger responded to this accusation.

“Pay no attention to malicious slander. All we are doing is resurrecting the ‘Hurva,’ which was destroyed 60 years ago. We have no intention of rebuilding the temple, not this week – unless the Almighty God descends it from the heavens,” said the chief rabbi during the inauguration ceremony.

“All the rumors that suggest we will later march on Temple Mount are just that – rumors. A media spin by anti-Semites that wish us harm.”

5:26PM: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin and Brazilian President Lula da Silva embrace during the latter’s visit to the Knesset today.

Reuven Rivlin: I can’t quite get my arms around you.

Lula da Silva: I know the feeling.

4:25PM: Wall Street Journal op-ed on the latest US-Israel crisis (via Ynet):

In response, the Wall Street Journal op-ed wrote that the Obama administration “has endorsed ‘healthy relations’ between Iran and Syria, mildly rebuked Syrian President Bashar Assad for accusing the US of ‘colonialism,’ and publicly apologized to Muammar Gadhafi for treating him with less than appropriate deference after the Libyan called for ‘a jihad’ against Switzerland.”

However, when it comes to Israel, “the administration has no trouble rising to a high pitch of public indignation,” wrote the article entitled “Obama’s Turn Against Israel.”

“Repeated apologies from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prevented Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—at what White House sources ostentatiously said was the personal direction of President Obama—from calling the announcement ‘an insult to the United States,’” stated the opinion piece.

“Since nobody is defending the Israeli announcement, least of all an obviously embarrassed Israeli government, it’s difficult to see why the Administration has chosen this occasion to spark a full-blown diplomatic crisis with its most reliable Middle Eastern ally… If Israel senses that the Administration is looking for any pretext to blow up relations, it will care much less how the US might react to a military strike on Iran.’

The financial newspaper took an opposite stance on West Bank settlements than that adopted by the Obama administration: “As for the West Bank settlements, it is increasingly difficult to argue that their existence is the key obstacle to a peace deal with the Palestinians. Israel withdrew all of its settlements from Gaza in 2005, only to see the Strip transform itself into a Hamas statelet and a base for continuous rocket fire against Israeli civilians.”

“This episode does fit Mr. Obama’s foreign policy pattern to date: Our enemies get courted; our friends get the squeeze. It has happened to Poland, the Czech Republic, Honduras and Colombia. Now it’s Israel’s turn,” quipped the Wall Street Journal.

12:25PM: What I did last night.

12:10PM: Oh, the horror of the treatment of palestinians in Israeli prisons!

Dr Evil

Jailed Fatah official Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life terms in prison for his role in attacks that killed and wounded several Israelis during the second intifada, has completed his doctorate in political science, his supporters said over the weekend.

Barghouti, 50, is one of several hundred Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons who enroll in studies at universities around the world, including in Israel.

According to his supporters, Barghouti was accepted by the University of Cairo and the Arab Academy for Research and Studies in the Egyptian capital back in 1999, three years before he was arrested by the IDF.

Barghouti’s doctoral thesis is titled “The Legislative and Political Performance of the Palestinian Legislative Council and its Contribution to the Democratic Process in Palestine from 1996 to 2008.”

The 341-page document will be brought on Tuesday for discussion before a special panel headed by Prof. Ahmad Yussuf, dean of the Arab Academy for Research and Studies.

Barghouti was able to complete his thesis with the help of hundreds of books and documents that Israeli authorities allow inmates to bring into prison.

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are currently enrolled as students with the Open University of Israel, which facilitates their studies by allowing them to sit exams in jail.

Barghouti, who is also a Fatah member on the Palestinian Legislative Council, completed his high school exams while in Israeli prison in 1980. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history/ political science and in international relations, respectively, from Bir Zeit University, north of Ramallah. His master’s thesis dealt with Palestinian-French relations from 1967 to 1997.

On May 20, 2004, he was convicted of five counts of murder – including authorizing and organizing the Sea Food Market attack in Tel Aviv in which three civilians were killed. He was acquitted of 21 counts of murder in 33 other attacks for “lack of sufficient evidence.” On June 6, 2004, he was sentenced to five life sentences for the five murders and 40 years imprisonment for the attempted murder.

The only doctorate I wish he had completed in prison is his doctorate in Bubba science (specialization in soap retrieval from prison shower).

11:50AM: Here’s the report mentioned in my previous update, which refutes every claim of the Goldstone report and proves Hamas’ use of children as human shields (hat tip: Barry).

6:06AM: According to a new report being released by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (Malam), Hamas used children as human shields, and established command centers and Qassam launch pads in and near more than 100 mosques and hospitals during Operation Cast Lead.

Ok, nothing new there, but it contains hundreds of declassified photographs, videos, prisoner interrogations and Hamas-drawn sketches as part of an effort to counter the criticism leveled at Israel in the Goldstone Report. In essence, it is “the first real, aggressive Israeli response to the Goldstone Report, taking it apart piece-by-piece and explaining the true nature of the conflict against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”

Israel already released its preliminary response to the Goldstone Report over a month ago.

5:45AM: Australia’s ABC news deals with this latest US-Israel rift. Notice how White House Official David Axelrod calls the timing of Israel’s announcement of new housing units “calculated,” clearly not accepting Israel’s explanation it was accidental.

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Three months ago, Australia voted against a similar resolution which sought to endorse the Goldstone report – a UN-sponsored paper which accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes.

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, said yesterday that the change was not related to the passport scandal and that Australia abstained because the latest resolution did not specifically endorse the Goldstone report.

”Our vote on the resolution was neither determined nor influenced by recent events,” he said. ”The Australian government always considers UN resolutions on a case-by-case basis and on their merits. Australia abstained on this resolution because, unlike previous resolutions, it did not endorse the Goldstone report.”

Six other countries also changed their votes, including Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. Some countries, such as Britain, France and New Zealand, shifted from abstention to support. Others, such as the United States and Canada, voted against both resolutions.

Britain, France and Germany have all recently expressed anger at Israel after their passports were caught up in the Dubai plot.

One Department of Foreign Affairs source told the Herald there was no doubt the decision to abstain was intended as a sign to Israel not to take Australian support for granted.

”A number of things made it easier for us to switch our vote,” the source said.

”Firstly, the Americans helped the Palestinians to soften the wording of this resolution compared to the last one. Secondly, a number of other countries had indicated that they were toughening their own positions on Goldstone. But there is no question that the debacle surrounding our passports being used in Dubai helped to make up the government’s mind to abstain. The final decision was taken late on Friday, Australian time, just a few hours before the vote.

”Our pattern in the past has been to vote with the US when it comes to Israel, to show as much support for Israel as possible.

”We were also aware that the UK’s decision to vote in favour of the resolution was influenced by the fact that so many of their citizens had been caught up in the Dubai assassination.”

The opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman, Julie Bishop, yesterday accused the government of downgrading its support for Israel as part of its campaign to win a UN Security Council seat.

”I don’t understand the government’s change of heart,” she told the Herald.

”The Coalition’s position has been consistent. Having voted against the Goldstone report, we would continue to vote against it … Since coming to office the government has weakened Australia’s long-held position of supporting Israel at the UN.”

Mr Smith last week publicly summoned the Israeli ambassador, Yuval Rotem, over the suspected use of three forged passports by Israeli spies in the Dubai killing. Mr Smith warned that if Israel was behind the forgeries ”Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend”.

Israel has refused to confirm or deny involvement in the assassination. Its embassy in Canberra would not comment yesterday on the passport scandal or on Australia’s UN vote.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who has described himself as a lifelong supporter of Israel, indicated on Saturday he did not believe Israel’s public response to the incident was acceptable.

Mr Smith has been fiercely critical of the Goldstone report, saying it was excessively focused on Israeli actions and paid insufficient attention to Hamas’s rocket attacks against Israel.

Privately, Israeli officials expressed little concern at the vote, saying the new UN resolution simply expanded a plan for internal Israeli investigations of the allegations raised by the Goldstone report.

Meanwhile, contrary to the last statement, the Jerusalem Post reports that Israeli diplomatic officials are concerned by the fact Dubai “is slowly dripping out information” about al-Mabhouh’s killing to keep the issue alive and make Israel squirm.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

9:55PM: Earlier today, I posted the Dubai police chief’s comments regarding Israelis not being allowed into the UAE (see 5:46PM update).

Well, there’s more.

We will not allow those who hold Israeli passports into the UAE no matter what other passport they have,” Tamim said.

He did not explain what procedures would be used to identify the Israeli visitors, except that the police will “develop skills” to recognize Israelis by “physical features and the way they speak.”

Why do I get the feeling the following picture – or something similar – will feature in the Dubai police training?

9:45PM: In case you thought palestinian stone throwers were harmless..

A Palestinian youth lifts a rock during confrontations with Israeli police in Jerusalem’s Old City February 28, 2010.  Israeli police raided a plaza near the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on Sunday in response to stone-throwing protests by Palestinians, an Israeli police spokesman said. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

I’m sure being hit in the head by one of those would cause a fair bit of damage.

Heck, I know it for a fact, since it happened to a friend of my wife’s.

By the way, I find it curious that the caption writer admits the palestinian is lifting a rock, but refers to stone-throwing protests. In my mind, a stone is smaller than a rock.

6:00PM: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak speak to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

5:46PM: Travelers suspected of being Israeli will no longer be allowed into the United Arab Emirates even if they arrive with alternative passports.

But if you are an Islamic terrorist, enjoy all the UAE has to offer.

4:48PM: There’s an elephant in the room.

And it’s mother is a rabbit.

19-year-old rabbit raiser in Jenin said he was “shocked and terrified” when his newest animal gave birth to what he described as a tiny baby elephant on Sunday.

“I was concerned when I saw a black baby elephant next to nine white baby rabbits,” Alawna told Ma’an, adding that the creature died only five hours after it was born. He said he was baffled as to how the elephant was produced.

The mother rabbit, Alawna explained, is a Dutch breed which he bought six months ago from a farmer in the northern West Bank village of Jaba in Jenin district.

Muhammad Alawna raises rabbits as a hobby on his small farm north of Jenin, and works construction in Israel during the week.

I’m just wondering when the palestinians will claim it is a mutation brought about by exposure to a Zionist Death Ray.^TM

4:32PM: Dubai’s police chief has said the Mossad has insulted Dubai and countries whose forged passports were used by its agents in the killing of Hamashole Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

“Mossad shouldn’t come to us. We haven’t done anything to Israel. This is an insult to us, to Britain, to Australia, to Germany and to New Zealand and it’s shameful,” Tamim told reporters in Dubai, a member of the United Arab Emirates.

Apparently, Dubai was not too insulted about hosting a known terrorist working to bring deadly weapons to other terrorists, and who himself was traveling under a variety of identities.

1:14PM: The palestinian cabinet has held its weekly meeting in Hebron “to strengthen the connection between the PA and the city, and demonstrate its importance to the palestinians.”

Of course, the palestinian connection to Hebron is over 80 years old.

11:52AM: The Jerusalem Post reports on the impending Israeli Apartheid Week, a week of campus moonbattery in cities across the world.

The sixth international Israeli Apartheid Week kicks off on Monday, with the “week-long” festivities taking place over 14 days in over 40 cities across the globe.

Organizers say this year’s events are meant to “educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaigns as part of a growing global BDS movement.”

The IAW’s Web site says 2010’s apartheid week “takes place following a year of incredible successes for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement on the global level.”

Organizers say the event will not only push for an end to “colonization of all Arab lands” and the “full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel,” but also the dismantling of the West Bank security fence and the right of return for Palestinian refugees

IAW released a trailer on YouTube earlier in February, showing a series of pastoral and urban West Bank and Gaza scenes as concrete sections of the wall plummet from the sky and mar the landscape. Halfway through the video, the words “Boycott, Divest, Sanction” appear and obliterate the wall.

IAW began in 2005 only in Toronto but by 2006 had spread to Montreal and Oxford, adding five more locations in 2007, including New York. In 2008, 19 additional locations were added, and by 2009, IAW was held in 27 cities. This year, over 40 cities are part of the proceedings, from Cape Town to Beirut to Melbourne.

The first IAW was organized by the University of Toronto’s Arab Students’ Collective in order to show  “solidarity with the people of Palestine and other oppressed nations. The first IAW was a five day event that featured lectures on the Nakba, as Palestinians refer to the dispersal of their population in the pre-state Israel following the 1948 war, as well as Palestinian prisoners, labor apartheid, and the Apartheid Wall. It also featured a lecture on ‘Resisting Apartheid’ that featured Haifa University professor Dr. Ilan Pappe,” according to IAW.

Noah Kochman, chair of the political affairs and advocacy department of the Canadian Federation of Jewish Students at McGill University in Montreal, said that activists at McGill and other universities in Canada will seek to counter IAW by reaching out to what according to him is the 80 percent of students “who don’t know about Israel and haven’t made their mind up about Israel yet.”

Kochman said that in addition to “combating the harassment and intimidation of Israel supporters on campuses and the demonization of Israel,” groups like his are moving to “harder-hitting, countering campaigns.” These include the “don’t play with the truth campaign,” in which the CFJS will hand out “truth cards” on campus to dispel what Kochman says are misconceptions about Israel, in addition to hosting a series of pro-Israel speakers on Canadian campuses.

Kochman says his group won’t seek to avoid politics or change the subject, saying they will directly address issues such as the Goldstone Report, Operation Cast Lead, and the Gaza Blockade. Kochman also said that IAW, for its part, does not address the peace process rather, “is devoted to the demonization of Israel.”

Dax D’Orazio, media coordinator for Students Against Israeli Apartheid at Carleton University, told The Jerusalem Post Sunday that his organization and others that are taking part in IAW are working “with the university community to launch a socially responsible investment policy that will work against investment in groups that violate labor rights and international law.”

D’Orazio discounted criticism that IAW is devoted to delegitimizing Israel or is anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic in nature, saying that such criticism “is part of an ongoing campaign to blur the line between the advocacy of Palestinian rights and anti-Semitism.”

Yep. Nothing anti-Semitic about it.

Meanwhile, here’s the official trailer for Israeli Apartheid Week 2010.

Seems to be missing some important elements, such as even a clue to the terrorist attacks that gave rise to the security fence to begin with.

6:05AM: King Abdullah of Jordan yesterday stated the international community must take immediate measures to protect the holy sites in east Jerusalem from unilateral moves on Israel’s part.

Thank G-d for Jordan, the epitome of Holy site protector.

In other news, there is an airport named after Yasser Arafat, the father of airline hijackings.

Just saying.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:46PM: If it wasn’t already evident to you that the Goldstone Report is seriously flawed, it should be after reading about Desmond Travers, the senior figure responsible for the military analysis in the report.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
New Revelations About the UN Goldstone Report that Seriously Undermine its Credibility

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Col. (ret.) Desmond Travers was one of the four members of the UN Fact Finding Mission that produced what is widely called the Goldstone Report. The Mission investigated Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip between December 27, 2008 and January 18, 2009. Travers joined the Irish Defense Forces in 1961 and retired after forty years. As the only former officer who belonged to Justice Richard Goldstone’s team, he was the senior figure responsible for the military analysis that provided the basis for condemning Israel for war crimes.

After following his repeated public appearances with the other mission members in July 2009, and especially in light of his most recent interviews, serious flaws have now become evident in the methodology he followed, in his collection and processing of data, and in the conclusions he draws. In the past, the flaws in the Goldstone report, and especially its lack of balance, have been criticized by the London Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Economist, but the fundamental problems of its military analysis have not been fully addressed. In the material presented here, this becomes evident in four specific ways:

1. A Fundamental Bias against the Israel Defense Forces

During the Mission’s collection of testimonies from Palestinian psychologists in the Gaza Strip, Travers asked them straight out to explain how Israeli soldiers could kill Palestinian children in front of their parents. In an interview with Middle East Monitor, on February 2, 2010, he asserted that in the past Israeli soldiers had “taken out and deliberately shot” Irish peacekeeping forces in Southern Lebanon. Both of these statements by Travers are completely false. It should be stressed that one of the most vicious and unsubstantiated conclusions in the Goldstone Report is the suggestion that Israel deliberately killed Palestinian civilians.

While Travers assumes the worst of intentions on the part of the Israel Defense Forces, he praises Hamas for their cooperation with the Mission. When he was asked about Hamas intimidation that affected the Mission’s inquiries, he replied that that there was “none whatsoever.” Yet the Goldstone Report itself noted in Paragraph 440 that those interviewed in Gaza appeared reluctant to speak about the presence of Palestinian armed groups because of a “fear of reprisals.” He rejects the notion that Hamas shielded its forces in the civilian population and does not accept the idea that Israel faced asymmetric warfare.

2. False Information Reported About Weapons Systems

Travers comes up with a story that the IDF had unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) that could obtain a “thermal signature” on a Gaza house and detect that there were large numbers of people inside. Incredibly, he then suggests that with this information that certain houses were “packed with people,” the Israeli military would then deliberately order a missile strike on these populated homes. The primary technical problem with his theory is that Israel does not have UAV’s that can see though houses and pick up a thermal
signature. More importantly, Israel used UAV’s to monitor that Palestinian civilians left houses that had received multiple warnings, precisely because Israel sought to minimize civilian casualties, a fact that Travers could not fathom, because of his own clear biases.

3. Completely Inaccurate Data

Travers rejects that Israel began military operations against the Gaza Strip on December 27, 2008 as an act of self-defense in response to Hamas rockets. He bases this idea on a “fact” that he presents that in the month prior to start of the war, there were only “something like two” rockets that fell on Israel. Israeli military sources found that there were in fact 32 rockets fired from Gaza at Israel over three days alone–between December 16 and 18, 2008. He adds to his analysis that at this time Hamas sought to extend the tahdiya, or lull arrangement–which he called a cease-fire. Yet the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas announced on December 17 that the lull would come to an end two days later and would not be renewed. The head of the Hamas political bureau in Damascus, Khaled Mashaal, announced the end of the lull on December 14. To say that Hamas wanted to continue the lull is a
complete distortion of events.

In his Middle East Monitor interview, Travers states that he “only came across two incidents of where there was an actual combat situation” – the exchange of fire between Israel and Hamas. Because he minimizes the possibility that Israel was engaged in real combat in the Gaza Strip, it follows that he naturally conclude that Israel was essentially attacking non-combatants during Operation Cast Lead.

4. Lack of Professionalism in Conducting Thorough Investigations

Travers relies on his own prejudices when he looks into the question of whether Gazan Mosques had been militarized by Hamas and turned into weapons depots. In an interview with Harpers, published on October 29, 2009, Travers makes a sweeping generalization: “We found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions.” He then dismissed those who suggested that was the case by saying: “Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion.” How many mosques did Travers investigate? He admits that the Mission only checked two mosques.

Of course, Israel produced photographic proof that large amounts of weapons were stored in mosques, like the Zaytun Mosque. In a subsequent interview, Travers rejected the Israeli proof: “I do not believe the photographs.” He described the photographs as “spurious.” Travers appears to be bothered by proof that contradicts the conclusions he reaches on the basis of a very limited investigation. In early 2010, Colonel Tim Collins, a British veteran of the Iraq War, visited Gaza for BBC Newsnight (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8470100.stm , 20 January 2010) and inspected the ruins of a mosque that Israel had destroyed because it had been a weapons depot. He found that there was evidence of secondary explosions cause by explosives stored in the mosque cellar. Travers clearly did not make the effort that Collins made.

In his questioning of Palestinian witnesses in the Gaza Strip, Travers does not ask the questions that a military advisor should raise. He did not ask those giving testimony if they were member of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam units of Hamas and were combatants. He also failed to ask them straight out if their homes had been used to store munitions, like Grad rockets. Instead, his questions reflected his ideological bias.

Travers most recent interview also had a disturbing additional element. When addressing the role of British officers in defending Israel’s claims, Travers suddenly adds: “Britain’s foreign policy interests in the Middle East seem to be influenced strongly by Jewish lobbyists.” Travers implies that British Jews have interests that differ from Britain’s own national interests and that Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government is influenced by these considerations. This statement, unless corrected, places Travers is a position in which his views are suspect of being motivated by anti-Semitic prejudices. Even without this last statement, he clearly emerges as an individual who is not qualified to take part in any serious fact-finding mission and the U.N. should not seek his services in the future. Given his statements, Justice Richard Goldstone should repudiate Col. Travers and completely reject the conclusions that he reached as a result of his work.

10:20PM: Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has condemned today’s “stabbing incident.”

Which was not as much an “incident” as a terrorist attack committed by a senior officer of his own security forces.

“Such an incident,” the Palestinian prime minister said, “undermines national Palestinian objectives, and the Palestinian Authority’s commitments.”

And is MURDER, Fayyad.

Meanwhile, the family of the murdered Druze Arab IDF soldier, 28-year-old Ihab Khatib, has pledged to continue enlisting in the army and contributing to the state of Israel.

Many residents arrived at the Khatib family home to comfort the parents.

“Our village has sadly ‘contributed’ many soldiers to the security of the State of Israel,” one of the visitors said.

“Even if there are disagreements among us, and despite the instances of discrimination and oppression, we will all continue to enlist and contribute to the country in which we live, and for whose continued existence we pray.”

6:20PM: An Israeli is set to replace Simon Cowell on American Idol.

Which would mean we retain some Zionist control on the panel.

6:15PM: The IDF officer murdered earlier today was an Arab – Ihab Khatib from Kfar Maghar.

The terrorist was PA officer Mahmoud al-Khatib.

A SENIOR officer in the PA security forces, that is.

6:10PM: Shame on Reuters who are even worse than the AP when it comes to media bias.

Case in point: the captions for these photos capturing yesterday’s riots at the Shuafat refugee camp.

An undercover Israeli police officer (R) scuffles with a Palestinian youth suspected of throwing stones while trying to detain him during clashes in the Shuafat refugee camp in the West Bank near Jerusalem February 9, 2010. Clashes erupted between Palestinian stone-throwers and Israeli police that entered the refugee camp, a Reuters witness said on Tuesday.
REUTERS/Ammar Awad (WEST BANK – Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST)

Looks like the Israeli police officer initiated the rough stuff with a palestinian “youth,” who does not look too youthful to me. That is, until you read the AP caption from the same incident.

A Palestinian rioter tries to grab a weapon from a plain-clothes Israeli police officer, right, during clashes in Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2010. Palestinians scuffled with Israeli security forces, after an arrest operation triggered clashes in the camp the day before. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Here it becomes clearer that this was not a case of Israeli aggression against a palestinian, but a matter of life of death for the police officer, who would surely have been killed with his own weapon had the palestinian succeeded in grabbing it. Furthermore, the palestinian is not described as a youth, which seems to be accurate.

5:55PM: The Israeli murdered earlier this afternoon was an IDF soldier.

3:52PM: TERROR ATTACK: Almost two hours ago, an Israeli was killed after being stabbed by a palestinian while sitting in his jeep near the Tapuach Junction.

Judea and Samaria District Police officers apprehended the terrorist. The knife used in the attack was found at the scene. Israeli security officials said the terrorist acted alone.

The incident occurred at around 1:50 pm, when the Israeli vehicle was stuck in a traffic jam. The Palestinian terrorist stabbed the Israeli twice in the chest through the open car window.

The Israeli tried to flee the scene, but his jeep overturned into a ditch.

A security officer from the nearby Jewish settlement Rachelim, who happened to be at the scene, ran the terrorist over with his car. The Palestinian sustained very mild injuries.

“I was in my car when I saw a man approach another vehicle and stab the person inside. I realized I was witnessing a terror attack. The terrorist began running away, but I kept my cool, drove after him and managed to hit him with my car,” the security officer, Yossi Margalit, told Ynet.

“I stepped out of my car, apprehended the terrorist and turned him over to the security forces,” he recounted.

Prediction: we will not hear any condemnation of this attack by the palestinians and their supporters, but we will hear complaints about the palestinian being run over.

Meanwhile, the Ha’aretz report includes this interesting fact.

Yossi Margalit, a security officer from a nearby settlement who arrived the scene ran over the attacker, lightly wounding him. He was then arrested, and given medical attention on the spot.

Wow, we are so bad at genocide and ethnic cleansing that we ensure even their terrorists are alive.

2:16PM: Lebanese Prime Minister Saad “Stark” Hariri has confirmed that Lebanon=Hizbullah.

Hariri added that Lebanon was united, and that his government would stand by Hezbollah – the Lebanese terror group which fought Israel in 2006.

“I think they’re (Israel) betting that there might be some division in Lebanon, if there is a war against us,” he said, “Well, there won’t be a division in Lebanon. We will stand against Israel. We will stand with our own people.”

Which means that Israel’s agreement to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which demands, inter alia, that Hizbullah be disarmed and full control of Lebanon by the government of Lebanon, was a really rotten idea.

But we already knew that.

1:05PM: PA sex and corruption scandal? Naaaa, just an Israeli conspiracy of course!

The Palestinian Authority expressed their outrage on Wednesday at Israel’s Channel 10 report of a video found depicting one of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ senior advisors in compromising positions with a woman candidate applying to work in his office. According to a PA official, the report was merely an Israeli smear campaign meant to embarrass Abbas.

The report also aired claims made by former General Intelligence chief Fahmi Shabana that officials close to Abbas and his predecessor Yasser Arafat were entangled in corruption scandals amounting to millions of shekels stolen from public coffers.

Shabana, who was in charge of the PA’s anti-corruption campaign, claimed in interviews with the media that he placed before Abbas evidence of widespread economic corruption around him, but that the president declined doing anything about it. According to him, senior Fatah officials during Arafat’s rule stole millions of shekels from PA coffers, a large amount of which originated from Arab states, Europe, and the US as donations.

The Fatah officials allegedly requested inflated sums for purchasing land, which was valued far lower than the numbers they presented, and the proceeded to pocket the difference. Shabana hinted that even Abbas’ family members were involved in the corruption, but has yet to prove so.

Shabana also revealed an embarrassing video from 2008 depicting the head of Abbas’ office, Rafik al-Husseini, rubbing his body against his secretary and apparently trying to convince a woman seeking employment in the office to have sexual relations with him.

Shabana was suspended from his position. When Abbas sought to reinstate him, he was arrested by Israel for holding membership in a foreign security body in light of the fact that he is a resident of east Jerusalem and holds an Israeli identity card. Shabana claims, however, that he was arrested at the behest of the Palestinian Authority.

A high-ranking PA official said Wednesday to Ynet that the video revealed by Shabana is a personal issue known for quite some time and that his staff are not rattled by the corruption claims. According to the official, the PA maintains transparency with donor countries and operates a strict oversight mechanism on their payments.

The source said that publishing such a report along with the video is nothing but an Israeli conspiracy aimed at tarnishing the credibility and status of Abbas in light of his refusal to return to the negotiation table under the conditions stipulated by Israel.

Here’s the report (see from 1:15 onwards). Those of you who do not understand Hebrew can skip to 4:47 onwards, which features some shots from the aforementioned “embarrassing video.”

The video must have been doctored by crafty Zionists, since PA officials never act corruptly.

6:00AM: Ashkelon Municipality and the city’s Parents’ Association yesterday filed a petition with the High Court of Justice demanding the court order the government to finish fortifying its schools, in accordance with the Homefront Command’s recommendations.

The petition says that after nine kindergartens were fortified in March of last year the Defense Ministry halted all work, and that 13 kindergartens and 10 elementary schools still remain vulnerable to rocket threats.

The children studying in these facilities are currently instructed to hide underneath their desks in case of a Color Red alert.

The petition says the parents of these children are “incredibly worried and anxious”, and asks the court to remedy the situation.

I wonder if Richard Goldstone or others who have come out against Operation Cast Lead ever had a child who had to experience something like this.