A State Department spokesman said Tuesday night that the United States expects an official response from Israel soon. He said Clinton and Netanyahu may speak by phone as early as Wednesday. Netanyahu is expected to deliver Israel’s official response to Clinton during that conversation.

Israel’s response had been set to be the main focus of a meeting Wednesday of the forum of seven senior cabinet members, though that meeting will now not take place.

Meanwhile, the palestinians – who initiated violent riots yesterday because Israel rededicated a synagogue previously destroyed by the Arab Legion – need not do anything but sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

Oh, and thank their lucky stars for Barack Obama.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

7:00PM: Hillary has softened her rhetoric against Israel.

6:50PM: To quote Gene Wilder in The Frisco Kid, “Would somebody please show this poor asshole the way out of town?”

After visiting the grave of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah on Wednesday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the security barrier must come down.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Da Silva added that Brazil would continue to support the Palestinians so that their dream of establishing an independent, secure state will come true.

Earlier, the Brazilian president placed a wreath on Arafat’s tomb, despite criticism from Israel.

The Brazilian leader has said he would like to play a bigger role in Mideast diplomacy. He is visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories this week.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he boycotted meetings with Da Silva because the Brazilian leader did not visit the grave of Zionism’s founder Theodor Herzl.

6:28PM: Jordanian King Abdullah “Beaver” II is being a responsible peace partner and trying to calm the situation down.

Yeah, right.

The international community should not stand by and watch as Israel attempts to rid Jerusalem of its Arab residents, Jordanian King Abdullah II said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Jerusalem is a red line and the world should not be silent about Israel’s attempts to get rid of Jerusalem’s Arabs residents, Muslims or Christians,” the Dubai daily Khaleej Times quoted the king as saying to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Amman.

And we all know Abdullah knows all about getting rid of palestinians.

2:38PM: Quote of the day:

“Now, however, we see the Obama Administration has decided to escalate, make unilateral demands of Israel, and threaten the very foundation of the US-Israel relationship. This is quickly leading to the worst crisis in US-Israel relations in decades, and yet this did not have to happen.”

—-

“Once again, the Obama Administration is missing the boat on a very, very important issue. They need to go back to the basics and acknowledge Palestinian leaders have not progressed any peace process since President Obama was elected. As Israel makes concessions (and is still criticized by the Obama Administration), Arab leaders are just sitting back waiting for the White House to further pressure Israel. The Obama Administration needs to open its eyes and recognize that it is only Iran and her terrorist allies that benefit from this manufactured Israeli controversy.”

- Sarah Palin (on her Facebook page)

11:46AM: Ha’aretz reports on the Simpsons’ upcoming Israel episode.

The first images from the upcoming episode of The Simpsons, in which the animated family visits Israel, were released this week after six months of buzz over the special show to be aired in the United States on March 28.

The episode, titled “The Greatest Story Ever D’ohed,” includes scenes of Homer and Bart at the Western Wall with their Israeli tour guide, who will be voiced by British comedian Sascha Baron Cohen, of Borat and Bruno fame.

In the episode, Homer gets “Jerusalem Syndrome” and believes that he is the Messiah. Also, the tour guide bickers and exchanges political barbs with Marge.

“This is an episode that people from all three religions will be equally offended by,” said Simpsons producer Al Jean.

The show has featured many Jewish jokes and characters during its 21 seasons on air, most prominently Krusty the Clown (whose Jewish name is Herschel Shmoikel Pinchas Yerucham Krustofski).

7:35AM: The PA has named a street in Ramallah after terror enabler Rachel Corrie.

Which is quite appropriate, when you think about it.

7:26AM: Introducing our latest weapon: Zionist Death Doob.^TM

A student from Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev shows his creation as he takes part in a competition to roll the most original looking joint in the southern city of Beersheba March 16, 2010. The student-organised event, which featured legal tobacco as the filling rather than marijuana, drew around 20 contestants wanting to win the 800 Shekels prize (around $200). REUTERS/Amir Cohen

5:58AM: Charles Krauthammer explains what the real insult is in this latest US-Israel crisis.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to alleviate new tensions with the United States on Tuesday, after an announcement that Israel will build 1,600 new homes in an ultra-Orthodox East Jerusalem neighborhood drew strong condemnation from the White House, and visiting U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

The prime minister reportedly promised Biden “No one was seeking to embarrass you or undermine your visit – on the contrary, you are a true friend to Israel.”

Biden arrived in Israel on Monday in an attempt to kick-start long-stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, which had been expected to resume in the coming days, but looked in danger Tuesday after a furious response from the Palestinians to the construction plan.

Netanyahu told Biden during their meeting in Jerusalem earlier in the day that he had had no prior knowledge of the decision to authorize the additional construction, and added that the program had been drafted three years ago and only received initial authorization that day. It could take several months, Netanyahu assured him, before the program is granted final approval.

Netanyahu told his guest that the regional councils are not under the political leadership’s direct authority, and that his administration tries not to interfere with their work.

A high-ranking official in Jerusalem, however, said Netanyahu has “no problem” with construction in Jerusalem and has no intention of apologizing for building there. The official acknowledged, however, that the announcement’s timing was harmful to Israel’s diplomatic interests.

“We didn’t want to humiliate Biden or sow division while he is in Israel,” the official said.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:40PM: Oh, this should be good:

Caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad will open the first international conference on the theology of peace, justice and reconciliation in a Palestinain context, hosted by the Bethlehem Bible College and Holly Land Trust, organizers said.

The conference, titled Christ at the Checkpoint: Theology in the Service of Peace and Justice, is set to run 12-17 March, and “aims to equip the global church to understand Scripture as it relates to the Palestinian context,” a news brief about the conference said.

Perhaps a good starting point would be to look at references to the palestinians in scripture.

Yes, exactly.

8:00PM: Biased caption of the day:

Palestinian women supporters of the Islamic Jihad movement march during a rally against Israel’s decision to include two West Bank shrines on a list of national heritage sites, in the Jebaliya refugee camp, north of Gaza City, Wednesday, March 10, 2010. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Forgetting a minor detail there, Mr caption writer?

5:52PM: With Joe Biden in Israel, the PA ordered the cancellation of a ceremony to honor terrorist Dalal al-Mughrabi by naming a traffic circle near Ramallah after her and unveiling a memorial plaque.

Or should that be postponement.

4:50PM: Ynet reports:

US Vice President Joe Biden has told the Palestinians that they deserve a “viable” independent state with contiguous territory.

—-

At a news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, Biden reiterated his condemnation of Israel’s plan and urged both sides to refrain from actions that could “inflame” tensions.

The American VP said Israel’s plan was undermining Palestinian faith in new peace negotiations.

“It is incumbent on both parties to build an atmosphere of support for negotiations and not to complicate them,” Biden told reporters.

“Yesterday the decision by the Israeli government to advance planning for new housing units in east Jerusalem undermines that very trust, the trust that we need right now in order to begin … profitable negotiations,” he said.

Abbas, for his part, urged Israel to commit to the peace process. “The Palestinians remain committed to peace as a strategic choice,” he said.

If I am not mistaken, Biden made this comments while standing under a banner of arch terrorist and father of the airline hijacking, Yasser Arafat, which serves as a reminder as to how the palestinians do not deserve a “viable” independent state with contiguous territory, and are not committed to peace as a strategic choice.

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, talks during a press conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, not pictured, as he is backdropped by a banner of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Wednesday, March 10, 2010. Israel’s new plan to build 1,600 homes for Jews in Palestinian-claimed east Jerusalem overshadowed Biden’s visit to the West Bank on Wednesday.

3:10PM:  The Corrie circus is in town.

A court today began hearing a civil suit brought against the Israeli government over the death of Rachel Corrie, the US activist who was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza seven years ago.

The case, brought before a Haifa court by Corrie’s family, challenges the official Israeli version of events in which the military said its troops were not to blame. The family hopes the hearing will be a chance to put on public record the events that led to their daughter’s death in March 2003. If the Israeli state is found responsible, the family will press for at least $300,000 (£201,000) in damages.

Before the hearing began, Craig Corrie, Rachel’s father, said the family had been on a “seven-year search for justice in Rachel’s name”.

“I think when the truth comes out about Rachel, the truth will not wound Israel, the truth is the start of making us heal,” he said.

Cindy Corrie, Rachel’s mother, said the family was still waiting for the credible, transparent investigation Israel first promised into her daughter’s death.

“I just want to say to Rachel that our family is here today trying to just do right by her and I hope that she will be very proud of the effort we are making,” she said.

The family’s lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein, will argue that witness evidence shows the soldiers saw Corrie at the scene, with other activists, well before the incident and could have arrested her or removed her from the area before there was any risk of her being killed.

He will argue her death was either due to gross negligence by the Israeli authorities or was intentional.

Four key witnesses – three Britons and an American – who were at the scene in Rafah when Corrie was killed are to give evidence.

The first witness to give evidence was Richard Purssell, a Briton who was an ISM volunteer along with Corrie. He described how he had gone to Gaza to see the situation for himself and to prevent the Israeli military from demolishing Palestinian houses.

He said the ISM told him it was a strictly non-violent organisation. “Our role was to support Palestinian non-violent resistance.”

He briefly described the moment Corrie was killed. “Rachel disappeared inside the earth and the bulldozer continued for 4 metres and then reversed,” he told the court.

Corrie, who was born in Olympia, Washington, travelled to Gaza to act as a human shield at a moment of intense conflict between the Israeli military and the Palestinians.

On the day she died, when she was just 23, she was dressed in a fluorescent orange vest and was trying to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home in Rafah. She was crushed under a military Caterpillar D9R bulldozer and died shortly afterwards.

A month after her death the Israeli military said an investigation had determined its troops were not to blame and said the driver of the bulldozer had not seen her and did not intentionally run her over.

Instead, it accused her and the group she was with, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), of behaviour that was “illegal, irresponsible and dangerous.”

The army report, obtained by the Guardian in April 2003, said she “was struck as she stood behind a mound of earth that was created by an engineering vehicle operating in the area and she was hidden from the view of the vehicle’s operator who continued with his work. Corrie was struck by dirt and a slab of concrete resulting in her death.”

But several witnesses offered a different version of events, saying the driver had seen her but continued anyway, hitting her with the bulldozer blade. She was severely injured and died shortly afterwards in an ambulance.

While Corrie was in the Palestinian territories, she wrote vividly about her experiences. Her diaries were later turned into a play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, which has toured internationally, including in Israel and the West Bank.

I have to chuckle. The ISM is constantly complaining when Israel arrests its “activists” (i.e. terror enablers) who are obstructing IDF operations designed to bring security to Israeli civilians. Yet now Corrie’s lawyer is arguing Israel could have arrested her.

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about what happened to Rachel Corrie, I suggest you start here:

The Upcoming Rachel Corrie Trial: Go After Her Real Killers

The Myth of Rachel Corrie

Rachel Corrie’s Dreams

Myths and Facts

11:52AM: Old and busted: settlement freeze.

New hotness: Illegal palestinian worker freeze.

Despite the hot weather, an ice cream truck investigated in Netanya on Tuesday was not transporting ice cream to bathers on the beach, but Palestinians illegally present in Israel.

Netanya police carried out routine checks in the city’s southern neighborhoods. “We got to Ramat Poleg beach, where we saw an ice cream truck parked near the restaurant on the beach,” Community Officer Avinoam Shoshan said. “I know this beach well, and know there isn’t an ice cream truck there usually. We observed the truck, and saw people going into the vehicle.”

The vehicle and the activity around it raised the suspicions of the police. “We decided to check it out from close up,” Shoshan said

“We knocked on the vehicle, but nobody opened it. We continued until finally the door was opened and people began to exit – not one or two, but 14, one after the other. Upon investigation, we saw that the vehicle’s storage area had been turned into a big bedroom, for 14 people.”

Further checks revealed that all 14 are Palestinians who are in Israel illegally. Some of them have a criminal past, some are not permitted to enter at all.

6:18AM: Interview with a Syrian political analyst regarding Syria’s claim that Israel dropped uranium particles in an attempt to justify bombing a desert site.

Noteworthy: Syrian political analyst’s “didn’t hear your question” when faced with a tough one, followed by lame answer (from 1:40 onwards).

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Palestinian police in Ramallah arrested a man on Monday they said was a member of an armed gang that stole a large sum of cash at gunpoint from another man.

Police said the gang stole 99,000 US dollars from the man, who said he was planning to purchase a bulldozer with the money. The robbery victim notified the police on Monday, who located one of the suspected perpetrators.

Which begs the question: what did the victim want with a bulldozer?

Journalist working on police success story has car vandalized near Ramallah police station

Unidentified vandals smashed the windshields of Ma’an’s Ramallah correspondent Muhammad Al-Lahham in the central West Bank while he was preparing a report on the Palestinian police units in the city.

According to Al-Lahham, he parked his car near Ramallah Park and left the area with another journalist in order to prepare a report about the success of the Ramallah police. When he returned one hour later, the windshield of his car was smashed and the car door open. He also reported that personal items were stolen from the car.

A Palestinian boy sticks his face through a wooden cutout of a cowboy to have his picture taken at an amusement park on the third day of the festival of Eid-Al-Fitr, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008. Muslims are celebrating the three day Eid-Al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan is made to humiliate himself by the brutal Zionist Occupation Forces.

..while palestinians of all ages engage in good, clean fun..

Meanwhile, the palestinians of occupied Ramallah endure horrendous pain in various Zionist torture devices.

While the idea that a small child’s mother and grandfather could be involved in her murder is hard enough to believe, what has made the story even more unbelievable are the facts surrounding it. In short: Rose’s parents divorced after her mother had an affair with her husband’s father, the grandfather murder suspect. The mother and grandfather then had two more children of their own.

But if you think that is all unbelievable, read this next story from Ma’an News.

Palestinian general detectives arrested a woman in Ramallah on charges that she killed three children, including her own daughter, the police information center announced Wednesday.

During questioning, police say the woman admitted to killing her brother’s four-year-old son when her brother travelled abroad in 1997, but he asked that she not tell anyone about it.

Three years later, she allegedly suffocated her own 10-year-old daughter, hiding her body in a bedroom. She reportedly also told the brother about her daughter’s death, and he again urged her to keep it secret.

She apparently killed her infant son in 1994, as well, though she maintains that the six-month-old’s death was accidental. Police plan to investigate that claim, as well.

Police first became involved when an organization called Defense for Children International sent a letter on 14 August to the director general of the Palestinian police, Hazim Atallah, about the case of a minor held on robbery charges at the Dar Al-Amal rehabilitation facility.

The letter said that the 17-year-old had accused his father-in-law of torturing his brothers and mother, according to Muneer Al-Jaghout, a representative at the Police Information Center in Ramallah.

Police grew increasingly concerned when the boy began discussing events surrounding the death of his brother three years earlier. Police then submitted the case to Ramallah Director of Police Yousif ‘Uzreil, who in August agreed to follow up on the boy’s story.

According to a police statement, the suspect claimed she accidentally suffocated her 6-month-old infant as she was breastfeeding him.

Subsequently, the woman and her daughter moved into her family’s home.
It was there, she says, that her brother began demanding sex, which she originally rejected. Eventually, however, she agreed and the two began having an affair. Her brother had two wives, according to the report, because he married his dead brother’s widow.

In interrogation, the suspect told police that her brother forced her and his two wives to “practice lesbianism together,” which included having sex and sleeping in the same bed.

The brother’s two wives reportedly corroborated her story. Police later found video evidence of the women’s claims in a search of the brother’s home.

Police then arrested the brother, who owns a coffee shop in Ramallah, on weapons and ammunition charges. Police also seized multiple video cassettes, a camera, CDs and illegal drugs. The man told police that he had been a drug addict for about 15 years.

After reviewing the videos, which contained explicit and incestuous footage of the brother and sister, along with the two wives, police summoned the sister for interrogation.

The police information center did not propose a motive for any of the alleged murders. Its statement did not explain why police failed to investigate that three children were missing for over a decade.

Four Palestinians were arrested on Wednesday afternoon after they tried to run over IDF soldiers near Ma’ale Levona north of Ramallah. No one was wounded in the attempt, and no damage was caused.

The Palestinians drove to an earth barrier near the settlement in 3 vehicles – 2 cars and one bulldozer – and tried to break the barrier and run over the soldiers.

The soldiers shot in the air and arrested the assailants, who were then questioned by police. Many police and IDF troops were called to the scene.

All these palestinians suddenly losing control of their vehicles. It’s only a matter of time until it’s blamed on Zionist booby trapping.