Thousands of people gathered Monday in the square opposite Argentina’s congress in Buenos Aires in preparation for a protest march against Israel. The protest was scheduled to coincide with President Shimon Peres’  visit to the country.

Protestors carried signs displaying dead children and calling Peres a “murderer”, and handed out pamphlets condemning Israel and its leaders.

The demonstrators were made up of a number of groups, some of them blatantly pro-Muslim and others from various human rights organizations.

One of the protestors told Ynet, “It’s a disgrace that the president of our country is meeting today with child-murderer Shimon Peres. He should be expelled from the city. There are thousands of people who came here today to protest against the hospitality shown to a representative of an occupying and oppressive government.”

Signs also displayed pictures of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. One of the signs said: “Get out of Argentina, murderer Shimon Peres”, and another said: “Death to Zionist-fascist Israel, officer of American imperialism in the Middle East, murderers of the Palestinian people!”

Protestors also carried signs glorifying Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, and Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, as well as Lebanese flags. Journalists who were suspected of having Israeli backgrounds were ushered away and threatened with having their cameras broken.

Sounds like a peaceful, peace-loving lot.

Meanwhile, Peres was up to his old tricks.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:08PM: Here’s Bibi’s close call captured on film.

7:55PM: Too busy for updates today, but it was worth the wait.

Netanyahu: “Phew! This thing’s not inflatable.”

Guard: “All vests on this vessel are.”

Netanyahu: “I wasn’t referring to the vest.”

[real story here]

(http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/11/13/shimon-the-moral-pygmy-calls-goldstone-small-man/)

Shimon, Moral Pygmy Calls Goldstone ‘Small’ Man

Anti-Israel nincompoop and self-proclaimed morality expert Richard Silverstein in March 2008:

(http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2008/03/10/merkaz-harav-students-denounce-minister-as-murderer/comment-page-1/#comment-83533)

You must’ve been blown in by a foul wind fr. my good “friend” Aussie Dave, the liar & moral pygmy who writes Israellycool & makes feeble attempts to ridicule my views.

Meanwhile, Silverstein’s Twitter profile picture has inspired me: Tickle Me Dodo?

South African jurist Richard Goldstone lambasted President Shimon Peres on Thursday for a personal attack on him, which the president launched in response to a damning report he compiled on the Israel’s winter offensive in Gaza.

“I would say that the President’s comments are specious and ill-befitting the Head of the State of Israel,” Goldstone said in an interview with Haaretz.

“I am content to be judged by my actions over the course of my career both in terms of my professional judicial career and my voluntary service.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

9:25AM: The nutty pro-terror.

12:58AM: A new monument in memory of the victims of 9-11 has been dedicated in Jerusalem.

“All the feelings that we’ve been through came back to me, tears simply fell from my eyes,” said Miriam Avraham, who lost her daughter Alona in the New York City World Trade Center attack eight years ago. Abraham attended a ceremony dedicating a new Jerusalem monument in memory of the victims of the September 11 attack on the United States.

The monument, which was designed by artist Eliezer Weishoff at an estimated cost of NIS 10 million ($2.6 million) is nine meters high and is made up of a waving American is transformed into a memorial flame. This is one of the only monuments outside of the US that features the names of all the 2,980 victims of the attacks as well as their home countries. Five Israelis are among the dead.

Weishoff began thinking of a way to honor the memories of the terror attack’s victims eight years ago. He originally thought of designing a medallion. After receiving then Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert’s blessing and the approval of environmental organizations, the sculptor contacted the Jewish National Fund and built the monument together with the JNF.

“The concept was a burning torch with the American flag waving with its folds creating the upward flow of lines,” Weishoff explained, “I made sure that the New York City municipality sent us a piece of the ruins from the Twin Towers and we planted it as a basis for the statue itself.”

This is not the first time Weishoff’s work is dedicated to terror victims. He also designed the monument commemorating the three women killed in the Apropo coffee house bombing in Tel Aviv in 1997.

The Jerusalem monument is not the only one in Israel dedicated to the victims of September 11. Rishon Lezion, Ness Ziona and Beersheba all have monuments commemorating the victims.

And Syrian dorktator Bashar Assad also says he supports negotiations.

With a little bit of terrorism on the side.

“The essence of peace is not just negotiations but rather, resistance as well,” state-run SANA news agency quoted Assad as saying.

Speaking at a conference of Arab political parties in Damascus, Assad said that by supporting “resistance” he also supports the peace process.

Armed fighting and peace talks are parts of the same “axis” to recover legitimate Palestinian rights, the Syrian leader said.

Sounds like someone we should deal with!

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

7:24PM: Photo of the day

Omm Ahmed, right, a woman militant in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), poses for a portrait in a house of a fellow fighter, in the Gaza Strip, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009. Founded in 1969 the DFLP is a Palestinian Marxist-Leninist, secular political and military organization. Approximately 40 women militants for the DFLP started training 6 months ago as a response to Israel’s January offensive. They range in age from 17 to 53 and many are married with children. (AP Photo/ Tara Todras-Whitehill)

The caption writer seems to have omitted to mention the elephant in the room, which is actually more like a child.

Then again, as we saw a few days ago, Ms Todras-Whitehill has a tendency to leave out relevant details.

4:52PM: Here’s the interesting story of an Israeli-Russian boxer out to kick butt.

And become a Rabbi.

Bonus: His surname is Foreman.

1:20PM: It is not every day that I agree with Shimon Peres about something. But today I do.

Richard Goldstone, who authored the United Nations report accusing Israel of perpetrating war crimes in its Gaza offensive earlier the year, is a man devoid of any real sense of justice and is intent on harming Israel, President Shimon Peres told Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during their meeting in Brasilia on Wednesday.

“Goldstone is a small man, devoid of any sense of justice, a technocrat with no real understanding of jurisprudence,” Peres told his Brazilian counterpart, adding that the South African jurist “was on a one-sided mission to hurt Israel.”

Referring to Goldstone’s recommendation to investigate possible war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, Peres said, “If anyone should be investigated, it should be him.”

5:46AM: University lectures on trains! Is there anything those crafty Jews haven’t thought of?

12:05AM: Still on the subject of Syria, look who’s a fan.

Academy Award-winning actress Angelina Jolie is planning to adopt a child from Syria, OK! magazine reported Wednesday.

The actress, who was recently in Syria with partner Brad Pitt to visit Iraqi refugees, has reportedly started the adoption process to bring home a baby girl.

—-

“It is clear that the Syrian people, no matter the challenges or difficulties they may face, have always shown generous hospitality to people in need,” the magazine quoted Jolie as telling local news agency ChamPress during her October trip.

I agree that Syria has shown generous hospitality to people in need, if by “people in need” Jolie means terrorist organizations.

(I wonder if this news is going to ruin the recent reconciliation with her father).

Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari responded by accusing Israel of committing “an act of piracy on the high seas,” and dismissed the charges as  “the usual outrageous concoction of lies.”

The same day, President Shimon Peres urged Syrian President Assad to engage in “direct and immediate negotiations, without mediators, without conditions, without postponements.”

I dunno. It’s almost like Peres is from another planet.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)?

5:50PM: Photo of the day:

A Palestinian holds up a banner depicting the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during a rally marking the anniversary of Arafat’s death in the West Bank city of Ramallah November 11, 2009. The Fatah movement of Abbas accused Gaza’s Islamist Hamas rulers of detaining dozens of its members on Tuesday to stop them marking the 5th anniversary of the death of Arafat. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman (WEST BANK POLITICS ANNIVERSARY IMAGES OF THE DAY)

Is it just me, or does it look like Arafat was wearing a condom on his head?

5:22PM: PA President Mahmoud Abbas is celebrating the fact his people have been engaged in terrorism for longer than anyone else.

“The Palestinian people and the Palestinian leadership will not lose hope and won’t allow despair to enter into our souls,” he said. “Our revolution is the most difficult and the longest revolution in history, and is perhaps the last revolution in the world.”

1:58PM: You remember that media blackout after yesterday’s Netanyahu-Obama meeting? Seems as though it may have been due to Washington disappointment with Bibi.

The White House expressed disappointment in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to Washington, with officials saying that they had hoped that the prime minister would present a concrete plan to scale back Israeli construction in West Bank settlements, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Speaking at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington on Monday, Netanyahu urged the Palestinians to resume peace talks with Israel, but failed to offer any new commitment regarding the settlements, which the Palestinians have demanded be halted as a precondition for talks, nor did he present any new terms for the talks.

“We had an idea that he might bring something out to push the process forward,” one U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal. “But he’s kept it in his pocket.”

There’s an obvious (Bill) Clinton joke here, but I am going to resist temptation. [add additional obvious Bill Clinton joke here]

6:15AM: Former Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs and three- time Defence Minister, Prof. Moshe Arens, speaking on the topic of the War on Terror and the Goldstone Report.

Clue: It involves a place on his anatomy where the sun don’t shine.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:30PM: Media bias of the day:

In this picture taken Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009, a domestic cat – an unlikely edition to an aspiring zoo, is seen climbing its cage at the Marah Land Zoo in eastern Gaza City. There’s little to do for entertainment for Gaza’s 1.4 million residents because of a two-year Israeli and Egyptian blockade, and the territory’s zoos became a popular form of past time. In 2008 the Marah Zoo was a fully functioning zoo, but during Israel’s January offensive, 90 percent of the animals died. Due to restrictions of the Israeli and Egyptian blockade – new animals can not be obtained – unless they are transported through the tunnels. As a result, there are not as large a variety of animals as before, but Gazans still flock to the zoo, due to the lack of sources of entertainment in the Gaza Strip.
(AP Photo/ Tara Todras-Whitehill)

Despite this Wikipedia entry of a caption, Ms Todras-Whitehill did not see it fit to mention another important aspect of the zoo, which incidentally could also account for some of the animals dying during Operation Cast Lead. But then again, given the lengths she seems to have gone to in order to take a picture of a cat and turn it into a piece of anti-Israel propaganda, I’m not surprised.

9:56PM: Israeli President Shimon Peres has offered Brazil ‘100 years of friendship.’

Which means he’ll probably still be alive when that time period runs out.

7:48PM: Reasons to hate the French #869: Their Foreign Minister.

France fears that Israel no longer desires a Middle East peace deal, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Tuesday, adding that Paris remained deeply opposed to settlement building in the West Bank.

—-

Speaking on France Inter radio, Kouchner made clear he was not expecting any swift break through in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

“What really hurts me, and this shocks us, is that before there used to be a great peace movement in Israel. There was a left that made itself heard and a real desire for peace,” Kouchner said.

“It seems to me, and I hope that I am completely wrong, that this desire has completely vanished, as though people no longer believe in it,” he added.

Why do you think that is, Douchner?

I posit that it is due to Israelis waking up to the fact that the more we appease palestinian terrorism, the further away from peace we move.

7:40PM: Music interlude, dedicated to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

5:18PM: Dang! We’ve lost our number one ranking in the Al Qaeda Enemy charts to the Shi’ites who have reached number one with a bullet.

The leader of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Penninsula warned Tuesday that Shi’ite Muslims, particularly Iran, posed more danger to the world than either Jews or Christians.

“They [Shiites] are being driven by a greed to take over Muslim countries and they are full of a wish to annihilate Sunnis,” Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman al-Rashid said in an audio recording carried by the U.S. monitoring group SITE Intelligence.

“Their threat to Islam and its people is much bigger than that from Jews and Christians,” he added.

3:48PM: Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon in an interview with Danish TV.

Note: Don’t panic when you hear the interviewer at the beginning sounding like the Swedish chef. The interview itself is in English.

8:52AM: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama have met for almost two hours, followed by a standard photo and press conference only a White House statement that “The president reaffirmed our strong commitment to Israel’s security, and discussed security cooperation on a range of issues.”

Hmmm.

5:48AM: Of buses and barriers:

A Palestinian child is reflected on the glass of a bus as it drives past a section of Israel’s controversial separation barrier in al-Ram between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem.(AFP/Daniel Bar-On)

While on the subject of the barrier and buses, look here for a reminder of why the barrier exists.

But according to Ha’aretz, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration over US recognition of a unilateral palestinian declaration of independence within the 1967 borders, which would render any Israeli presence across the Green Line (including in Jerusalem), an illegal incursion to which the palestinians would be entitled to engage in measures of self-defense.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

9:45PM: Quote of the day:

“I wouldn’t be able to speak with Netanyahu so comfortably but I would speak comfortably with Bashir. I say comfortably “What you’ve done is wrong”. And I would say it to his face. Why? Because a Muslim couldn’t do such things. A Muslim could not commit genocide.”

- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

6:25PM: Here’s Hamas’ response to Mofaz’s peace plan:

The Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip said Sunday that they would never negotiate with the “Zionist enemy”, hours after Kadima MK Shaul Mofaz presented a plan to hold talks with the group and establish a Palestinian state in 60 percent of the West Bank within one year.

In its official response, Hamas called Mofaz’s offer “Zionist vulgarity” and said it would never recognize Israel or give legitimacy to the occupation.

“Any negotiation with the Zionist enemy regarding rights and legitimate recognition would only give it further excuse to commit crimes,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.

My spidey senses detect some Hamas opposition to his plan.

3:50PM: Today’s prize for Most Likely to Fail Math goes to..

A woman holds placard reading ‘US plus Israel equals a monkey’ as she joins hundreds of Islamist Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia movement members in an anti-US and anti-Israel rally in front of the US embassy in Jakarta on November 8, 2009.

2:56PM: Someone’s been drinking the foolade.

Knesset Member Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) on Sunday presented his plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state in temporary borders, saying such a plan is needed “because the relative calm is dangerous, and at its end hides a violent and bloody conflict.”

Speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, Mofaz said, “If (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu won’t implement this plan, I will do so when I become prime minister.”

The MK, a former IDF chief of staff, also said Israel should consider negotiating with Hamas.

“How can it be that six months have passed since Netanyahu’s Bar-Ilan address and there is still no plan in place?” Mofaz told the press conference. “If Hamas is elected and chooses to negotiate – Israel must conduct dialogue with any group that changes its behavior.

“Meanwhile, Hamas continues to prepare for the next round (of fighting). They must realize that if they plan to continue firing on communities, their fate will be sealed,” he said.

The main point of Mofaz’s plan is the establishment of a Palestinian state in temporary borders on 50% – 60% of the Palestinian territory in the West Bank, mainly in Area A and Area B, which are under Palestinian control. The next stage, according to the plan, will be negotiations on the core issues, including the future of Jerusalem, the Palestinian refugees and the permanent borders. Mofaz is opposed to dividing the capital.

Mofaz is willing to commit to the world, and even give guarantees, that the final Palestinian state will not be formed on less than 92% of the territory.

Brilliant! Negotiate with terrorists who are openly attacking us (and are known to negotiate short-term “ceasefires” to regroup before attacking us again), reward them for their terror and then warn them not to continue along this path. (Come to think of it, this is not much different than the Oslo process. We would just be negotiating with the terrorists who don’t wear the Armani suits).

Thankfully, Mofaz is not the Prime Minister and hopefully has little chance of being so after revealing his plan.

8:20AM: US President Barack Obama’s videotaped message for last night’s Yitzhak Rabin commemoration.

Many people – including yours truly – have noticed Obama’s statement “Israelis will not find true security while the Palestinians are gripped by hopelessness and despair.”  While I don’t agree that it justifies terror, it certainly does seem to attribute blame to Israel. It is also patently wrong – Israelis will not find true security while her neighbors hold on to dreams of removing her from the world map.

6:05AM: Hamas has commended the current Israeli government for its efforts in trying to reach a swap deal for Gilad Shalit.

But al-Zahar said Abbas’s resignation had nothing to do with talks on Shalit. “The current Israeli government is continuously occupying itself with a swap deal, in contrast with the previous government, which would send an envoy and then disappear for months,” he said.

By “lip service”, I guess she means what the Obama administration is paying to the decades of Israeli concessions for peace, which have been met by nothing but increased terrorism.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:10PM: Funny, they don’t look Jewish.

Story here.

7:42PM: The Israeli media and numerous blogs are today reporting what I posted about last week – Iranian and Israeli officials reportedly met and engaged in serious discussions on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament last month. Needless to say, Iran is denying it.

5:30PM: Ma’an News has a report on the daughter of terror enabler Lauren Booth visiting Gaza for the first time. And while the whole article is infuriating, this section in particular struck me:

Eight-year-old Alexandra Darby, the niece of Quartet envoy Tony Blair, toured the West Bank this week on a bicycle, peddling an estimated 200 kilometers from Amman to Jerusalem.

Asked what she will tell her school friends about the Peace Cycle journey, Alex reflected, “I’ll tell them that the people here are very nice, not like they say in the newspapers.”

The West Bank is not a usual vacation site for most eight-year-olds. But, as mother, journalist and activist Lauren Booth explained, “She’s been asking me for the last five years why she can’t go to Palestine, and despite the fact that the Israelis can make it bloody trying to get in and out, the greeting here I knew would be so sensational for her that I didn’t have a reason not to bring her.”

Why doesn’t Alex think other kids get to come to Palestine? “Because, of course, the telly, which says Palestinians are not like us, that they are a revolting people, a violent people, a nasty people, it’s mad. In fact it’s the exact opposite, it’s the Israelis.”

In other words, this eight-year-old girl is stating Israelis are a “revolting, violent and nasty” people. Where do you think she gets this from?

Which goes to further prove that people like Booth are more anti-Israel than pro-palestinian.

Not that Booth’s brainwashing of her small children was not already apparent. You may recall I posted this video of her children here.

Incidentally, this is the same song quoted in the Ma’an article.

Getting nervous about the visit, Alex asks if we want to hear the song she will share with the children at the school.

“Are you ready?

Free my people Palestine – Sing it loud
We will never let you die – Sing it loud
Palestine West Bank Ramallah Gaza, this is for the child that is looking for an answer
I wish I could take your tears and turn them into laughter
Long live Palestine, Long live Gaza!”

Utterly brainwashed by her own mother.

Meanwhile, these vile views are not all that Booth Jr shares with her mother.

3:25PM: Bring out the flying pig, because The Independent – arguably the most anti-Israel daily in UK – has published an extraordinary article, which is mandatory reading for anyone genuinely interested in understanding the Middle East conflict.

But especially for those who aren’t (hat tip: Graeme).

It is a long article, but here are some of the more noteworthy passages:

It is a cynical but time-honoured practice in Middle Eastern politics: the statesmen who decry the political and humanitarian crisis of the approximately 3.9 million Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gaza ignore the plight of an estimated 4.6 million Palestinians who live in Arab countries. For decades, Arab governments have justified their decision to maintain millions of stateless Palestinians as refugees in squalid camps as a means of applying pressure to Israel. The refugee problem will be solved, they say, when Israel agrees to let the Palestinians have their own state.

—-

The inclusion of the descendants of Palestinian refugees as refugees in UNRWA’s mandate has no parallel in international humanitarian law and is responsible for the growth of the official numbers of Palestinian refugees in foreign countries from 711,000 to 4.6 million during decades when the number of ageing refugees from the 1948 Israeli war of independence in was in fact declining. UNRWA’s grant of refugee status to the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees according to the principle of patrilineal descent, with no limit on the generations that can obtain refugee status, has made it easy for host countries to flout their obligations under international law. According to Article 34 of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, “The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees,” and must “make every effort to expedite naturalisation proceedings” – the opposite of what happened to the Palestinians in every Arab country in which they settled, save Jordan.

—-

After 60 years of failed wars, and failed peace, it is time to put politics aside and to insist that the basic rights of the Palestinian refugees in Arab countries be respected – whether or not their children’s children return to Haifa anytime soon. While Saudi Arabia may not wish to host Israeli tourists, it can easily afford to integrate the estimated 240,000 Palestinian refugees who already live in the kingdom – just as Egypt, which has received close to $60bn in US aid, and has a population of 81 million, can grant legal rights to an estimated 70,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants. One can only imagine the outrage that the world community would rightly visit upon Israel if Israeli Arabs were subject to the vile discriminatory laws applied to Palestinians living in Arab countries. Surely, Palestinian Arabs can keep their own national dream alive in the countries where they were born, while also enjoying the freedom to work, vote and own property?

A practical solution to the crisis of the Palestinian refugees in Arab countries will focus on Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, which together play host to approximately 3 million of the estimated 4.6 million Palestinian refugees living outside the West Bank and Gaza. While each of these countries has chosen different legal and political approaches to the 1948 refugees and their descendants, they share a political desire to sublimate the rights of Palestinian residents, treating them as unwanted guests or as tools to be used in pursuing wider political interests – but rarely as fully-fledged members of society. Lebanon, where Palestinians led by Yasser Arafat are widely blamed for having sparked the 1975 civil war, is the worst offender against international norms. Yet even in Jordan, which is in many ways a model for the humane treatment of a large refugee population, Palestinians today feel markedly less secure than they did two decades ago, or even five years ago.

—-

The fact that the living standard of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon has been deemed “catastrophic” by both UNRWA and by the Lebanese government can therefore be understood as a deliberate result of official state policy that is supported by all parties across Lebanon’s divided confessional spectrum. As a member of the Lebanese parliament, Ghassan Moukheiber, explained in an interview with the ICG, “our official policy is to maintain Palestinians in a vulnerable, precarious situation to diminish prospects for their naturalisation or permanent settlement”.

—-

For many of these refugees at the bottom of Jordan’s social and economic pecking order, life without papers means hiding from the police who constantly patrol their camp’s streets, being too poor to send any of your eight to 10 children to college, a lifetime of menial labour, and only a threadbare dream of returning to a homeland that most of them have never seen. There is strong suspicion of the state, but also of their neighbours, who are divided into “‘48 people” and “‘67 people”. “Some of the newcomers would give away Al Aqsa for a Jordanian identity card,” says Heba, a mother of eight, mentioning Islam’s celebrated mosque in Jerusalem, one of its holiest shrines.

“We’re Jordanians,” says her son, Mustapha, a slender, 20-year-old in a bright orange T-shirt emblazoned with meaningless words in unknown languages. “This is the best place in the world,” he says, pointing around the bare living room whose worn rugs and threadbare pillows cover the floor on which he and all his siblings sleep. “We would never leave here. But I’m loyal to my country, and I would like to visit it one day.”

He seems perplexed when asked which is his country – Jordan or Palestine. “We have no security here, but we are Jordanians,” replies Mustapha, who lounges on a mattress in a two-storey cement house down the road while one of his five daughters offers tiny glasses of steaming herbal tea and cardamom-scented coffee. “Everything I have is here. This house. My car. My job. What would I have in Nablus or Be’ersheba?” he declares. “My children know nothing but Jordan. And we will stay here.”

I’ve been making these points time and again on this blog, but the article’s publication in The Independent should expose these facts to more people, and especially to those who need them.

11:52AM: Sesame Street is set to go to Gaza, where the gang will talk about peaceful conflict resolution and promote self esteem for palestinians.

This represents bad news for Ernie and Bert.

8:28AM: Richard Goldstone in yet another interview with Al Jizz.

Note in particular:

• Goldstone repeating the untruth that the criticisms of his report do not go to the substance (to paraphrase Yoda, chopped liver we are?)
• Goldstone describing the Obama adminstration’s response to the report as “ambivalent” (he’s right)
• Goldstone referring to the case of palestinian children being deliberately shot as “indicating an unfortunate lack of discipline in the Israeli army,” and then responding to the interviewer’s question as to whether it is indicative of a lack of discipline or an issue of IDF policy by saying this is why there is the need for an investigation “to see where it comes from”, rather than whether or not the allegations of deliberate killings are true to begin with. In other words, he seems to be accepting the allegation of such an occurrence as fact, and defining the parameters of an investigation as determining why it happened, not if it happened.

6:05AM: Israel has reacted with caution to news that representatives of Iran, US, Russia and France accepted a draft agreement committing Iran to shipping 75 percent of its enriched uranium stockpile to Russia for further enrichment.

While both the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry have made no comment on the development – saying it was premature to discuss – others have not been quite as mum.

The Iranian nuclear threat is “still alive and kicking,” a senior official in Jerusalem told Ynet in the wake of reports about a draft agreement between Tehran and global powers in respect to Iran’s nuclear program.

However, it appears Israeli officials are divided on the implications of the draft deal, with some claiming that it marks an initial achievement in the battle against Iran. Supporters of the deal claim that Iran’s nuclear efforts will be set back by a year or more should the agreement be approved.

However, other officials in Israel are concerned that the agreement will be tantamount to giving Iran the go-ahead for continuing its uranium enrichment efforts.

“The great fear is that this kind of agreement will make it appear that Iran is indeed showing a reconciliatory attitude, while it continues the basic enrichment of uranium in Natanz and in the secret site exposed in Qom through the West’s intelligence work,” one official said.

“The expected deal takes care of Iran’s openly available uranium which it enriches for seemingly civilian aims, while it continues to secretly enrich uranium for military aims,” he said.

Israel officials are also looking to Washington, which expressed satisfaction over the agreement being formulated, as it was reached via dialogue rather than threats. At this time, Jerusalem will refrain from an official response to the draft agreement.

“As far as the Israeli government saying our report inhibits the peace process, that is shallow and false. What peace process are they talking about? There isn’t one! The Israeli foreign minister doesn’t want one! What peace process are they talking about that’s going to be inhibited?”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

3:20PM: The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen interviewed Richard Goldstone after the Arab-sponsored draft resolution adopting it was endorsed.

Note the following:

• Goldstone says he has no problem with that part of the resolution dealing with the report, and will not comment on the “even-handedness” of the report, despite being on record as saying “This draft resolution saddens me as it includes only allegations against Israel.”
• Goldstone reject the notion the report will impair the peace process, without rejecting the idea that a peace process exists as he did here

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Goldstone was being disingenuous and “playing to the audience.”

12:52PM: From the No Sh*T Sherlock department:

IDF official: Israel needs better PR

12:50PM: Interesting photo-caption combination.

A Palestinian man walks past graffiti of rockets in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip i August. One of the world’s leading human rights groups is battling a barrage of criticism for lashing out at Israel’s record while allegedly soft-pedaling violations by Saudi Arabia. (AFP/File/Mohammed Abed)

That’s a reference to this story, although the photo – with the graffiti glorifying terrorism – is a stark reminder of the human right groups’ failure to lash out at the palestinians‘ violations of human rights.

8:50AM: Canada’s top General refuses to be Goldstoned.

“I’m not sure if the Israeli standpoint is that much different than the Canadian standpoint, having had the experience in Afghanistan,” Canadian Armed Forces Chief of the Defense Staff, General Walter J. Natynczyk said Tuesday, concluding a three-day visit, in an interview to the IDF journal Bamahane.

Natynczyk was commenting on the Goldstone report, which sharply criticized IDF tactics employed during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in January this year, saying he wanted to read the report following his tour here to understand whether the document took into account the complexities of the theater in which Israel operated and the methods used by the enemy it was battling.

“I’ve got to look through the whole report and read it through myself. But I fully understand how when someone is attacked from houses, family houses, and so on, that there is a responsibility to protect oneself and protect civilians,” Natynczyk said. “I want to have a look at the report myself and understand the full context. I have just had a great education in terms of where weapons were fired from and so on. I want to look at the report in terms of how does it describe it… My impression of the Gaza Strip up to now has been through media reports. Now I got to actually see the size, the space, the context… It just puts into perspective many of the reports and also the operations that were conducted before.”

Natynczyk arrived in Israel on Sunday for a work visit as guest of the IDF Chief of General Staff, Lt. -Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi. Over the course of the visit, he held meetings with Ashkenazi, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and toured the country.

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Natynczyk related to the similarities between what is required of Israel and what is required of his country as part of its battle against terror, saying: “I’m not sure if the Israeli standpoint is that much different than the Canadian standpoint, having had the experience in Afghanistan.” He added “We have really come to understand and appreciate what the Israeli forces have had to counter for quite some time and the techniques, the way and the procedures that the Israeli military has adopted and evolved over the past few decades. We’re learning what can we adopt from Israeli forces that will enable us to reduce risks to our people”

6:15AM: Al Jazeera has this story and interview on the Goldstone Report.

Note the following:

• The choice of guests.  Al Jazeera were not content with a one-on-one style interview with an Israeli (representing the pro-Israel side) and an Arab (representing the anti-Israeli side), so they invited another Israeli who just happens to be even more vehemently anti-Israel than the Arab!
• The editor of Al Quds Al Arabi making specific mention of Goldstone’s Jewishness  (04:25)
• Retired Colonel Desmond Travers expressing his doubts about Hamas’ competency in conducting an investigation due to them being a relatively new political organization in Gaza, but hopeful they will show willingness to investigate themselves (14:30)
• The editor of Al Quds Al Arabi claiming there are no attacks on Israelis from the West Bank (21:20), which is simply a lie

6:00AM: Hamas is claiming the Goldstone Report does not single out Hamas.

Hamas is preparing a committee to investigate allegations that prisoners under de facto police control were shot and imprisoned during Israel’s war on Gaza, member of the party’s politbureau said Tuesday.

Speaking on Al-Arabiya, Moussa Abu Marzouq reiterated the party’s stance on the UN-mandated Goldstone report, which says there is evidence of war crimes in the actions of Israel and Gaza factions during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in December and January.

“It was all Palestinian factions who launched projectiles,” Abu Marzouq said, “including Fatah,” indicating that the report does not single out Hamas.

The sad thing is they are correct. Per Elder of Ziyon:

Sure enough, the report does everything possible not to explicitly name Hamas as being in violation of any humanitarian laws.

Going back to the section that is about Qassam rocket attacks against Israel, here is the first time the word “Hamas” is written in the body of the report, para. 1608:

On 20 April 2009, a member of Hamas called on other armed groups to stop firing rockets “in the interests of the Palestinian people”

Unbelievably, Hamas is only mentioned as a force that wants to stop rocket fire!

Later on, Goldstone does passingly mention the “armed groups” that it is referring to. Hamas, of course, is not one of them, but the Qassam Brigades are described as:

1611. The ‘al Qassam Brigades’ are the armed wing of the Hamas political movement.

Goldstone’s reluctance to blame Hamas even for rocket attacks on Israel borders on the comical. The report is forced to admit that Hamas had taken specific responsibility for rockets:

1627. The first civilian casualties from rocket fire were recorded on 28 June 2004 in Sderot, when Afik Zahavi (4 years old) and Mordehai Yosefof (49 years old) were killed by a Qassam rocket. Afik’s mother, Ruthie Zahavi (28 years old) was critically injured and nine others were wounded. Hamas claimed responsibility.994

1631. On 6 January 2009, during the Israeli military operations in Gaza, Khaled Mashal, Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau wrote in an open letter that the demand to stop the Palestinian resistance was ‘absurd … our modest home made-rockets are our cry of protest to the world”

The comedy descends into farce in this paragraph:

1635. In response to questions by the Mission, on 29 July 2009, the Gaza authorities stated that they had “nothing to do, directly or indirectly, with al-Qassam or other resistance factions” and stated that they were able to exercise a degree of persuasion over the armed factions in relation to proposed ceasefires. While noting that the weaponry used by the armed factions was not accurate, the Gaza authorities discouraged the targeting of civilians.

Not an ounce of skepticism by Goldstone for these manifestly absurd distinctions between Hamas and the al-Qassam Brigades; on the contrary, it appears that Goldstone embraced these distinctions – even when it clearly knows otherwise (para. 1611 above.)

In its Conclusions and Recommendations section, concerning rockets, the most critical paragraph again avoids blaming Hamas:

1950. In relation to the firing of rockets and mortars into southern Israel by Palestinian armed groups operating in the Gaza Strip, the Mission finds that the Palestinian armed groups fail to distinguish between military targets and the civilian population and civilian objects in southern Israel. The launching of rockets and mortars which cannot be aimed with sufficient precisions at military targets breaches the fundamental principle of distinction. Where there is no intended military target and the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population. These actions would constitute war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity.

This is the “balance” that Goldstone proudly points to. Israel is mentioned explicitly with regards to tens of alleged human rights violations; Hamas is not mentioned in connection with any war crimes!

Nothing about Hamas in the Gilad Shalit paragraph:

1952. With regard to the continuing detention of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the Mission finds that, as a soldier who belongs to the Israeli armed forces and who was captured during an enemy incursion into Israel, Gilad Shalit meets the requirements for prisoner-of war status under the Third Geneva Convention and should be protected, treated humanely and be allowed external communication as appropriate according to that Convention.

Even the sections that undoubtedly must refer to Hamas manages to avoid They Who Must Not Be Named:

1954. Although the Gaza authorities deny any control over armed groups and responsibility for their acts, in the Mission’s view, if they failed to take the necessary measures to prevent the Palestinian armed groups from endangering the civilian population, the Gaza authorities would bear responsibility for the damage arising to the civilians living in Gaza.

Similarly, the Recommendations section avoids the dreaded H-word as well:

1973. To Palestinian armed groups,
(a) The Mission recommends that Palestinian armed groups should undertake forthwith to respect international humanitarian law, in particular by renouncing attacks on Israeli civilians and civilian objects, and take all feasible precautionary measures to avoid harm to Palestinian civilians during hostilities;

(b) The Mission recommends that Palestinian armed groups who hold Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in detention should release him on humanitarian grounds. Pending such release they should recognize his status as prisoner of war, treat him as such, and allow him ICRC visits.

The only recommendations in the report to “Gaza authorities” are to release political detainees and to “continue to enable the free and independent operation of Palestinian non-governmental organizations.”

Hamas is not given a single recommendation to stop rocket attacks. Hamas is not told to stop incitement. Hamas is not told to release Gilad Shalit (as if he is being held against Hamas’ wishes!).

No wonder Hamas is thrilled about the report. In the entire 450 page report, Hamas is not singled out once for condemnation.

And all the news stories and Goldstone interviews that claim that the report condemns Hamas are wrong.

5:40AM: The kisser strikes again, the victim this time being US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice.

He just can’t help himself.

“It’s going to the UN,” the premier told lawmakers from his Likud party. “We’ll make sure it gets vetoed.”

He sounds confident. The question is: should he be?

Senior diplomats in New York, meanwhile, said the United States would prefer to support a moderately-phrased resolution on the Goldstone report by the UN Security Council, rather than use its veto power to nix such a resolution.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:00PM: The BBC has an interesting article on Bedouin who serve in the IDF (hat tip: James).

At least the first part of the article (reproduced below) is interesting. Beyond that, and you encounter traditional BBC Israel-bashing territory.

The traditional view of the Arab-Israeli conflict is of Jews fighting Muslims. But that image does not always reflect the truth.

In fact, there are thousands of Muslim Bedouin who serve in the Israeli army, or IDF, and even bear arms against their fellow Muslims in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

They do so although it is not compulsory for them to serve in the Israeli military, as it is for most Israeli Jews, and sometimes military service comes with a price tag.

“I will do whatever is required from me to do the job with the full faith in the service of the Israeli state,” asserts Maj Fehd Fallah, a Bedouin from the village of Saad in the Israeli occupied Golan.

He is happy to perform his duty, whoever he may have to fight against.

Funeral for members of the Heib Bedouin clan, killed in a Hezbollah ambush in Southern Lebanon in 1995
Bedouin have fought and died alongside Jewish Israelis in the army

“Yes, I have fought against Muslims in Gaza,” he says. That includes Israel’s three-week Operation Cast Lead which began in December last year.

“And I would fight again if I had to,” he added. “Israeli Muslims who don’t serve in the IDF should be ashamed for not serving their country.”

Israel’s Bedouin are a Muslim, Arabic-speaking group. Although these formerly nomadic people were once considered part of the Palestinian nation, most of them are now proud to call themselves Israelis.

Co-operation between Jews and Bedouin began before the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948.

In 1946, tribal leader Abu Yusuf al-Heib sent more than 60 of his men to fight alongside Zionist forces against their Arab neighbours in Galilee.

More than 60 years on, Maj Fallah’s devotion to the Jewish state was unequivocal. He even refused to be interviewed by me in Arabic, insisting: “I have better command of Hebrew.”

Military service is a family tradition in many Bedouin villages, especially those located in the north of Israel.

During my conversation with Maj Fallah, two men were standing listening to us. They were his cousins and both wore the uniform of the IDF.

“It’s a legacy – it’s something that has been passed on from generation to generation in my family,” Maj Fallah explains.

“My father and his father served in the army too.”

The Israeli army does not publish statistics about the exact number of non-Jewish enlisted soldiers, although it says hundreds of non-Jewish Israeli citizens – Muslims, Christians and Druze – join up every year.

Their numbers have grown rather than decreased since the controversial military assault on Gaza.

When I was in the army, they said it would be easy for me to get the job. I applied for a lot of things but it wasn’t easy
Maher, Bedouin recruit

The Israeli military official responsible for minorities is Col Ahmed Ramiz.

He is Druze, another Arabic-speaking ethnic group with a presence in Israel and other parts of the Middle East.

He told me that the main obligation for any citizen of Israel “is to defend his country and to serve in the IDF”.

How does this square with Israel’s status as the world’s only Jewish state? Why should Muslims apply – and why should Israel accept them? He explained the compromise in the following terms.

“We have decided that, due to the potential conflict between the Muslim person’s national identities and their status as Israelis, we don’t make it compulsory for Muslims to join the IDF,” Col Ramiz said.

Muslims could work in every unit of the army, even elite units, although a Bedouin recruit recently applied to join the pilot’s course and was declined.

“He didn’t meet the specific requirements and various personality tests,” the colonel told me, and denied it was anything to do with his ethnicity or religion.

7:46PM: Israeli President Shimon Peres talks to CNN about the Goldstone report, Iran and Israel’s relationship with Turkey.

6:02PM: Meanwhile, is it just me or does Nozette in this picture look a bit like a bloated Gene Simmons?

5:45PM: Former NASA scientist Stewart David Nozette was yesterday arrested for offering to pass along classified information to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer.

In an affidavit supporting the complaint that was unsealed Monday, FBI agent Leslie Martell said that on Sept. 3, Nozette received a telephone call from an individual purporting to be an Israeli intelligence officer. The caller was an undercover FBI agent.

Nozette agreed to meet with the agent later that day at a hotel in Washington and in the subsequent meeting the two discussed Nozette’s willingness to work for Israeli intelligence.

Nozette allegedly informed the agent that he had, in the past, held top security clearances and had access to U.S. satellite information, the affidavit said.

Nozette also was alleged to have said he would be willing to answer questions about this information in exchange for money. The affidavit said the agent explained that the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, would arrange for a communication system so Nozette could pass on information in a post office box.

Nozette agreed to provide regular, continuing information and asked for an Israeli passport, the government alleged.

The affidavit then alleged this sequence of events:

* Sept. 4. Nozette and the agent met again in the same hotel. The scientist allegedly said that while he no longer had legal access to any classified information at a U.S. government facility, he could, nonetheless, recall classified information by memory. Nozette allegedly asked when he could expect to receive his first payment, saying he preferred cash amounts under ten thousand so he would not have to report it. (U.S. anti-money laundering laws require that all transactions of $10,000 or more must be reported to the Internal Revenue Service, the tax collection agency.)

Nozette allegedly told the agent, “Well, I should tell you my first need is that they should figure out how to pay me … . They don’t expect me to do this for free.”

* Sept. 10. Undercover FBI agents left a letter in the designated post office box, asking Nozette to answer a list of questions about U.S. satellite information. The agents provided a $2,000 cash payment. Serial numbers of the bills were recorded.

* Sept. 16. Nozette was captured on videotape leaving a manila envelope in the post office box. The next day, agents retrieved the sealed envelope and found, among other things, a one-page document containing answers to the questions and an encrypted computer thumb drive.

One answer contained information, classified as secret, that concerned capabilities of a prototype overhead collection system.

* Sept. 17. Agents left a second letter in the post office box with another list of questions about U.S. satellite information. The FBI also left a cash payment of $9,000. Nozette allegedly retrieved the questions and the money the same day.

* Oct. 1. Nozette was videotaped leaving a manila envelope in the post office box. FBI agents retrieved it and found a second set of answers. The responses contained information classified as both top secret and secret, involving U.S. satellites, early warning systems, means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attack, communications intelligence information, and major elements of defense strategy.

What is not clear from this report is whether or not Nozette is Jewish and why the FBI targeted him.

Here is a site that seems to provide more answers.

Nov 1998-Jan 2008: Technical advisor to an aerospace company wholly owned by the Israeli government. Once a month, the company proposed questions or taskings to Nozette, who then answered the questions and received payment as a technical advisor.

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Nozette tells colleague that if the US Government tried to put him in jail (based on an unrelated criminal offense), Nozette would move to Israel or foreign country “A” and “tell them everything” he knows.

6 Jan 2009: Traveled to a foreign country “A” with two computer thumb drives.

28 Jan 2009: Returned to US without the two thumb drives.

3 Sept 09: Nozette contacted via telephone by FBI undercover employee (UCE) posing as an Israeli Mossad officer. Nozette agrees to meet that day for lunch at a hotel on Connecticut Ave, NW, in Washington, DC. At meeting, Nozette discusses willingness to work for Israeli intelligence for money; tells UCE he had access to US satellite information. UCE arranges a communication system via a post office box and gives Nozette a ‘clean phone’. Nozette agrees to provide regular, continuing information; asks for Israeli passport and the “Right of Return” because his parents are Jewish.

Meanwhile, it seems as though Nozette is a better spy than first thought.

(courtesy of the Jerusalem Post, of course)

12:10PM: A couple of Goldstone-related links:

• Robert Freedman argues in the Baltimore Sun that the Goldstone Report was destined to unfairly criticize Israel
• Harold Evans sees the report as a moral atrocity

8:15AM: How bad is is the Goldstone Report? Even the founder of Human Rights Watch is strongly criticizing it.

As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.

At Human Rights Watch, we always recognized that open, democratic societies have faults and commit abuses. But we saw that they have the ability to correct them — through vigorous public debate, an adversarial press and many other mechanisms that encourage reform.

That is why we sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights. We wanted to prevent the Soviet Union and its followers from playing a moral equivalence game with the West and to encourage liberalization by drawing attention to dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, Natan Sharansky and those in the Soviet gulag — and the millions in China’s laogai, or labor camps.

When I stepped aside in 1998, Human Rights Watch was active in 70 countries, most of them closed societies. Now the organization, with increasing frequency, casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies.

Nowhere is this more evident than in its work in the Middle East. The region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.

Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world — many of whom are there expressly to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.

Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.

The organization is expressly concerned mainly with how wars are fought, not with motivations. To be sure, even victims of aggression are bound by the laws of war and must do their utmost to minimize civilian casualties. Nevertheless, there is a difference between wrongs committed in self-defense and those perpetrated intentionally.

But how does Human Rights Watch know that these laws have been violated? In Gaza and elsewhere where there is no access to the battlefield or to the military and political leaders who make strategic decisions, it is extremely difficult to make definitive judgments about war crimes. Reporting often relies on witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers. Significantly, Col. Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and an expert on warfare, has said that the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza “did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”

Only by returning to its founding mission and the spirit of humility that animated it can Human Rights Watch resurrect itself as a moral force in the Middle East and throughout the world. If it fails to do that, its credibility will be seriously undermined and its important role in the world significantly diminished.

6:02AM: More from Tawil Fadiha, the Palestinian Minister of Uncontrollable Rage (hat tip: Richard).