Israellycool

This little piggy went to market.

This little piggy stayed at home.

This little piggy had roast beef,

This little piggy had none.

And this little piggy said “Why the hell am I flying?”

Arabic news channel Al Jazeera has apologised to Israel for its “unethical” coverage of the release of a convicted Hizbullah terrorist from Israeli prison last month.

Samir Kuntar, who spent 29 years in prison for killing four persons, including a four-year-old girl, was released by Israel last month following a swap deal with the Lebanese guerilla faction.

In an official letter, Al Jazeera’s General Director, Khanfar Wadah, has written that “elements of the programme” broadcast in Kuntar’s honour on the night of Saturday, July 19, “violated (the station’s) Code of Ethics,” and he “regards these violations as very serious,” daily Ha’aretz reported.

Given that whole programme was a birthday party for Kuntar, which elements did not violate (the station’s) Code of Ethics?

I kid you not.

For the second time this year, Israel has decided to act against Al-Jazeera, after the influential TV station held a party for released Lebanese child-killer Samir Kuntar, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The party, held in Beirut, was organized by the Al-Jazeera bureau there to honor Kuntar on the occasion of his release from Israeli prison. He was hailed as a hero who carried out a brave military operation against the Jewish state.

The Government Press Office said it would impose sanctions on Al-Jazeera and demand an explanation from the station.

Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief in Beirut, Ghassan bin Jeddo, has long been known for his close ties to Hizbullah.

Kuntar, for his part, thanked Jeddo and Al-Jazeera for supporting him and other prisoners in Israeli jails and for waging a campaign to bring about their release.

Daniel Seaman, director of the GPO, expressed outrage over the event.

On Tuesday, Seaman phoned Walid Omari, the Al-Jazeera bureau chief in Israel, and summoned him to an urgent meeting to inform him of the GPO’s decision to suspend ties with the station.

Omari, who is currently abroad, is scheduled to report to the GPO on his return, a source at Al-Jazeera said, adding that the station had still not been informed of the new measures against it.

Seaman said he also planned to write to the Foreign Press Association in Israel to explain his decision.

“We will suspend all handling of Al-Jazeera requests,” Seaman told the Post. “For now, we won’t provide them with any of our services, which include issuing press credentials and assistance with bureaucracy and applications for visas.”

Seaman said he would demand an explanation from Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar, about the event.

“I want to know what they are going to do about this case,” he said. “I want to know how they intend to handle this case. What they did was not professional.”

Earlier this year, Israel decided to boycott Al-Jazeera after accusing the station of supporting Hamas.

The boycott, initiated by the Foreign Ministry, included a ban on interviews by government officials and refusal to issue visas for the station’s employees.

The move had come after Al-Jazeera correspondents allegedly staged a candlelight protest following a government decision to reduce electric and fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip in response to continued rocket attacks on Israeli towns.

The ban was lifted after Al-Jazeera editors in Doha agreed to discuss its coverage of the Israeli-Arab conflict with Israeli government officials.

Hopefully this time, the Foreign Ministry will ban the Jizz for good.

Released murderer Samir Kuntar would like everyone to know he envies the Zionist enemy.

Kuntar, who spent decades in an Israeli jail after killing a 4-year-old girl and three others in 1979, said Thursday he envied the lengths to which Israel goes to retrieve the bodies of its soldiers, the Jerusalem Post reported.

“I’m jealous of the Zionists, who don’t spare any effort in bringing back captured soldiers or soldiers’ bodies,” Kuntar said in an interview on Al Manar, the satellite television network of the terrorist group Hezbollah. “Seriously, we are jealous of our enemy and its care for a [body] and how it goes to the end of the world in order to return it, and of its concerns for captives and how it will go to the very edge to bring them back.”

No word yet on whether Kuntar is also envious of our ability to see a 4-year-old child’s head, and not desperately want to smash it against a rock with a rifle butt.

Needless to say, Kuntar won’t let his envy get in the way of his desire to kill more Jews.

Anti-Israel blogger Richard Silverstein sees the lesson of the recent terrorists-for-corpses exchanges as “Give them more!”

The lesson Israelis should learn, indeed must learn to avoid the terror attacks and the necessity for having national martyrs like Regev and Goldwasser, is precisely what the Olmert government seems to be learning–but far too late in its tenure. The only solution is a negotiated settlement. Start with Syria: return the Golan and Shebaa Farms. Insist on Syria turning off the spigot to Hezbollah and ceasing its meddling in Lebanese internal affairs. Insist that Syria turn off the arms flow from Iran that travels via Syria into Hezbollah armories.

Ok, so the guy is misguided at the worst, you may be saying. But it get worse. In the comments, he then posits that the IDF’s crimes could be worse than Kuntar’s crime (smashing in the skull of a 4-year-old girl):

In this blog, I have written a great deal about young IDF soldiers & Border Police who commit crimes almost as heinous as the one Kuntar committed. If you consider that the IDF weaponry is far more sophisticated than Kuntar’s then the crimes could even be seen as more heinous. I focussed on Kuntar in this post because he was freed yesterday.

Followed by this response to a commenter who had the gall to say “Most daming [sic] for his people is the fact that in their “civilization ” a murderer of Jews will always be treated as a hero and has never and will never be put on trial.”

Perhaps we could expect Arabs not to treat their own murderers as heroes & to try them in court when Israeli soldiers & police are not allowed to kill Palestinians civilians w. apparent impunity. What should Arabs believe about an Israeli “civilization” in which soldiers kill civilians and are almost never punished?

You have a twisted, racist view of Arab civilization.

There’s also this comment from Silverstein on a blog that tries to mitigate Kuntar’s crime on the basis he was 17 years-old at the time, and had been a child soldier from a broken home before he left to become a “fighter” (hat tip: Soccer Dad).

Brava and I agree. Thank you for your humanity which is always bracing & reassuring. And for pointing out Kuntar’s status as a child soldier at the tail end of the Lebanese civil war. This puts his crime into a diff. context (while not excusing it).

Of course, Silverstein ignores the fact Kuntar has had years to reflect on his actions, and has returned to Lebanon without remorse and determined to kill more Israelis.

True, Silverstein does not go so far as to applaud Kuntar, and does admit he is a murderer. But once again, he cannot unequivocally condemn Kuntar’s barbaric act without putting it “in context” and comparing it to the IDF’s conduct (an odious comparison).

Richard Silverstein, you should be ashamed of yourself.

But are no doubt not.

Freed Lebanese murderer/terrorist Samir Kuntar, and you-know-who (no, not Voldemort).

(Thanks to Lila for drawing my attention to this picture).

Sickening.

Where’s a Hellfire missile when you need one?

Update: The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office has released this video on Kuntar:

Hot on the heels of news that the Lebanese government has declared Wednesday a national holiday to celebrate the release of Samir Kuntar and the other terrorists, comes word (from more than one Lebanese blogger) that Kuntar may be running for parliament in the next elections.

Welcome to Lebanon, a country where smashing in the skull of a 4-year-old girl could actually help your election campaign.

With brutal murderer Samir Kuntar about to be released in a few hours, here’s another reminder of the lives he mercilessly snuffed out.

Again, I can only hope Israel was smart enough to have placed some poison in Kuntar’s food, to guarantee him a slow and painful death.

Note: Props to AP for publishing this photo. I am normally very critical of their (biased) coverage, so I am more than willing to acknowledge when they get it right.

Updates (Perth, Australia time):

11:19AM: You will find here some pictures of Kuntar and friends being processed for released.

Is it just me, or does Kuntar look like Adolph Hitler after sucking on some hydrogen?

11:45AM: The IDF believes Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah will leave his bunker and “make a special appearance to greet Samir Kuntar upon his arrival in Beirut.”

Here’s hoping this happens, and an IDF jet is there to help Kuntar and Nasrallah make a special appearance to greet Yasser Arafat and the other terrorists upon their arrival in hell.

12:22PM: Israel National News reports:

Palestinian Authority media, controlled by “moderate” PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, has hailed the release of Samir Kuntar, saying the man who crushed the skull of four-year-old Einat Haran in 1979 “epitomizes the ideal Palestinian prisoner.”

I couldn’t agree more.

And that, my friends, tells you everything you need to know about Israel’s “peace partner.”

12:30PM: Ha’aretz reports that Hassan Chicken Nasrallah will apparently not attend the prisoner reception in Lebanon after all.

1:50PM: As the Jerusalem Post reports, the Regev and Goldwasser families are still hopeful their sons are still alive.

2:05PM: The exchange was supposed to happen 5 minutes, but I haven’t seen anything. The Ha’aretz news ticker reports that the swap is to be delayed by one hour, citing Hezbollah`s Al-Manar TV.

2:15PM: The soldiers are reportedly now on the border, but there’s no report of their condition.

2:16PM: They’ve been transferred to the Red Cross.

2:45PM: 2 coffins have been laid out at the border crossing.

This is a sad day for Israel.

3:50PM: Ynet reports:

Cries of horror sounded at the Regev and Goldwasser homes Wednesday, as family members witnessed the TV broadcast of the prisoner exchange, in which the coffins of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were shown being turned over to the Red Cross.

—-

Eldad Regev’s aunt, Hanna, collapsed upon seeing the images of her nephew’s coffin and was attended to by Magen David Adom paramedics, which were standing by.

My heart goes out to the Regev and Goldwasser families.

4:31PM: Ma’an reports that the body of terrorist Dalal Al-Mughrabi was one of those to be returned in the swap, contrary to an earlier report from Israel’s Channel 10.

It isn’t only Hezbollah celebrating the imminent return of the most sickening terrorist in recent memory, Samir Kuntar.

The entire government of Lebanon is joining in.

According to the Palestine Press news,

The Lebanese Prime Minister instructed the closure of all public administrations and public institutions and private institutions, municipalities, public and private educational Lebanon on Wednesday, 16/7/2008, in observance of the liberation of prisoners from the prisons of the Israeli enemy and the restoration of bodies of the martyrs to the soil of the homeland.

It is expected that permeated the celebrations all regions of Lebanon on this occasion.

Similarly, the Lebanon Daily Star said:

Lebanon is planning a welcome ceremony in Naqoura, and President Michel Sleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora will later greet the prisoners at Beirut’s airport.

It can perhaps be expected that traditional murderer-worshippers like Hezbollah or Hamas would celebrate the release of such a murderer. But this is the entire government of Lebanon, which despite Hezbollah’s influence is still considered to be pro-Western by the West, celebrating; every major political leader falling over themselves for a photo-op with this damned and depraved, pitiful excuse for a human being.

It isn’t just the terror organizations that embrace Samir Kuntar. It is the entire Arab world. Because anyone who kills Jews in Israel is, by definition, a hero to the Arabs across all political leanings.

If anyone can find a single Arab editorial that considers Samir Kuntar to be anything less than a hero, in any language, please let me know. Because I have not yet found it.

As I posted yesterday, the foreign press photographers are portraying child-murderer Samir Kuntar as anything but the monster he is, taking photo after photo of small children holding up his picture.

Today, we have this stark example of the lengths they will go to.

A Palestinian boy (L) holds a picture depicting Lebanese prisoner Samir Qantar during a protest in Gaza City calling for the release of prisoners held in Israeli jails July 7, 2008. REUTERS/Ismail Zaydah

Despite the fact the picture contains many people holding up pictures of different prisoners terrorists, somehow the caption refers only to the palestinian boy who is holding up the picture of Kuntar. The absurdity of this is amplified by the fact the caption writer has to note the child’s location, given he is but one of a crowd of people.

Reuters, could you get any more obvious?

With the imminent release of brutal murderer Samir Kuntar, the foreign press photographers have been having a field day with pictures of small children holding up his picture. I doubt there could be a more obvious ploy to evoke sympathy for this monster.

Yet not even one picture of the only children who really matter in this story.

That’s where I (and you) come in.

Einat and Yael Haran

And here’s a reminder of what Samir Kuntar did to them:

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat. They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. “This is just like what happened to my mother,” I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl’s skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.

Today, the Israeli cabinet approved a prisoner swap deal with Hizbullah in which Israel will receive the bodies of IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in exchange for notorious Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar.

Actually, that’s only part of it, albeit the main part. In addition, Israel will receive a report regarding Ron Arad, and the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the Second Lebanon War but never returned, while handing over four illegal Lebanese terrorists, the remains of dozens of infiltrators and terrorists (including eight Hizbulah fighters), and information regarding four missing Iranian diplomats. Did I mention we also have to release palestinian prisoners?

You can probably tell I am not impressed with this deal. In fact, with all due respect to the Goldwasser and Regev familes - whose suffering I could not even comprehend - the deal stinks. Assuming Ehud and Eldad are dead, we are essentially gaining their corpses and giving up one of the most brutal terrorists in recent memory. An unrepentant one at that.

Not only that, but this sets a very bad precedent. The terrorists now know we will pay an alarmingly high price, even for dead bodies. Which means if they capture live Israelis in future, gone is the deterrent to keep them alive.

No, this deal stinks. Unless, for example, we have secretly injected Kuntar with an agent that will kill him, but not before he spends much time in excruciating pain.