The UN is currently marking the historic date of November 29 1947, the day in which it approved the partition plan separating Israel into two states – Jewish and Arabic.

But while in Israel the date is celebratory, as it marks the end of the British mandate and the beginning of independent rule, the UN headquarters in New York and Geneva are holding ceremonies of mourning and solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The General Assembly in New York has embarked on a two-day marathon of anti-Israeli debates and votes, during which it plans to focus on the promotion of the Palestinian issue. Hearings will be held on subjects such as sovereignty over Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Israel has traditionally boycotted the debates due to their one-sidedness, but in recent years has changed its tune. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, is scheduled to speak before the assembly Tuesday and condemn the UN tradition of memorializing the date on which Israel was given a state as a day of mourning.

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The special debates are scheduled to begin Monday evening, and resolutions will be approved on the following day. Each year six of the 20 annual anti-Israel resolutions are passed by the November 29 assembly.

In addition, the UN will hold ceremonies and exhibitions on the Palestinian people and show a film on the subject.

Need I say any more?

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

5:58PM: Terrorist Samir Kuntar has some words of advice for the terrorists who captured Gilad Shalit: Don’t worry, Israel will cave in.

Samir Kuntar, the Lebanese who murdered the Haran family in Nahariya and was later released from Israeli prison in exchange  for the bodies of captured soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, learned from his own experience just how much Israel is willing to pay for the return of its captured soldiers.

He assured the Palestinians that Israel will ultimately capitulate to the demands being put forth by the organizations holding captured soldier, Gilad Shalit.

Kuntar, who made the hajj to Mecca, spoke with an Islamic Jihad online reporter in Saudi Arabia: “The prisoner swap deal will be an honorable deal. The enemy’s government will consent to the names demanded by the resistance organizations and to the number of prisoners. But the organizations need to stand their ground, be insistent, and not agree to any concession because concessions will draw additional concessions.”

Kuntar addressed the prisoners currently jailed in Israel with a recommendation that they be patient. “I spent 30 years in jail, and I ultimately got to see freedom,” he said.

Someone really needs to take him out (And I don’t mean to a restaurant).

And speaking of eating, here is a picture of Kuntar today.

And here he is while in an Israeli prison.

I’d say he was better fed by Israel.

3:00PM: From the Jerusalem Post.

Yep, looks pretty frozen to me.

12:25PM: The Chinese think more dialogue, not sanctions, is needed to resolve the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, after Teheran announced Sunday that it plans to build 10 more uranium enrichment facilities.

That’s just prain ridicurous.

12:15PM: When they are not refusing to condemn anti Semitic blood libels, the Swedes are presenting draft resolutions stating that Jerusalem should be divided and that the eastern part of the city should serve as the capital of a future palestinian state.

Needless to say, Israel’s pissed.

Israel on Tuesday slammed a Swedish proposal to recognize east Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. “The move being led by Stockholm damages the European Union’s ability to take part and be a significant element in the mediation efforts between Israel and the Palestinians,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levy.

“The Europeans must pressure the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table. Such moves like the one being led by Sweden lead to the opposite outcome,” Levy said in response to a report by Haaretz newspaper that Sweden was working to change the EU’s stated policy.

If only they’d stick to meatballs.

6:52AM: Surgeon-General’s warning: Handling explosives in your car may prove hazardous to your health.

A car exploded in the Gaza Strip on Monday, killing a militant and wounding two, witnesses and medical workers said.

The blast was caused by explosives within the car, according to Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain.

The incident, in the Shati refugee camp next to Gaza City, appeared to be an accident involving militants. However, witnesses said Israeli warplanes were flying overhead at the time.

An Israeli military spokeswoman denied Israel was involved, saying “there was no Israeli army activity in the area” in the Hamas-ruled enclave at the time of the blast.

Did I mention the terrorists-cum-french-fries were not Hamasholes, but rather members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah?

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah said one of its members was killed and another was wounded. But no militant group accused Israel of staging an attack, and media reports said the blast may have been an accidental explosion of ammunition inside the vehicle.

5:55AM: Head Hamashole Ismail Haniyeh is interviewed by Al Jazeera. Amongst other things, he states that Hamas is about to kick off an investigation into possible war crimes – pursuant to the Goldstone report – to find out “the truth about some of the misconduct that may have happended as a result of confusion during the war” (quite the comedian, no?), and indicates he is emboldened by private visits by European parliamentarians (including from governments hiding this fact from the media) and other dignitaries.

5:42AM: Gaza’s Hamas government has approved a legal change that will allow for the execution of convicted drug dealers.

Update: Separated at birth?

Or rocket launcher to be more precise.

Good to see the college degree he obtained while in an Israeli prison has come in handy.

We can only hope Hezboofhead’s renewed terror activities make him an easier target, and the next time we see him with a rocket, he’s on the receiving end.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

Where’s a Hellfire missile when you need one?

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

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