• 3 days ago, I posted DeltaGate Part Deux: This Time It’s Political

• Later that day, according to commenter sam on Israellycool and commenter Juda Engelmayer on Jumping the Zionist Shark, as well as Shurat Hadin, Avi Mayer, David Haivri & Ben Hartman on Twitter, Delta removed the word “Occupied”.

• Today, Challah posted Delta, Can You Fly Me To Ramallah?.

• Also today, according to Dr Mike Cohen on Twitter, Delta removed the remaining “Palestinian Territory” from that page.

So… I guess this means victory is ours, right? Right?

Yeah, not so much. This is that same Delta SkyMiles web page, as of about an hour ago, and still the same as I click the publish button. As I’ve been saying for a while on the original Israellycool post, on my blog, and on Twitter, when you click on the words “Middle East” on the “Within Middle East” box at the top of the mileage award chart below, it brings up an internal popup window that still says “Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

So which is it, Delta? Make up your mind, so we can get this over with already. There are other, more interesting things I’d like to write about, but since I started this, I feel like I have to see it through to the bitter end.

UPDATE: I Think You Forgot About Clearing Your Browser’s Cache, Zionist Shark

Epic Fail Is Mine!

Earlier today, commenter Brian Goldfarb pointed out that he wasn’t seeing what I was seeing, asking whether he was missing something. To answer your question, Brian, no you weren’t missing anything; I was. After reading Brian’s comment, I did something I should have done before posting this – I cleared my browser’s cache. This time, when I went back to the website, those words were gone.

So while my original post was valid, this one was not. Mea Culpa.

ISRAELIS have one more reason to be proud of themselves — one of their cities was singled out for a rare honor. The Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail last week selected the “most creative cities” of the world.

Leaning on the Global Creativity Index, devised at the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, the newspaper looked at the three Ts (technology, talent and tolerance) that have made cities shine.

The Globe and Mail even went a step further, in choosing “cities that are best positioned to nurture their creative edge into the future.”

Alongside with London, Sydney, Stockholm and Shanghai, Tel Aviv made it to the top of this prestigious list.

Here are some of the reasons the people of The Globe and Mail chose Tel Aviv as one of the cities that not only excel today, but will probably continue to do so tomorrow.

“The entire population of Israel may number only 7 million – smaller than New York City – but this Middle Eastern state spends more of its GDP on research and development than any other nation.”

…Add to this the leadership qualities gained by many Israeli entrepreneurs during military service, and you get a “Start-up Nation,” like the title of the book by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, explaining Israel’s economic miracle. Is this the only reason for the success of Tel Aviv?

Steve Brearton of the Globe and Mail is not sure. However, “What we do know is that while Tel Aviv is small, it’s one giant innovation engine.”

Gil Hirsch, who splits his time between Tel Aviv and California, explained to Andrew Braithwaite of The Globe and Mail how you form start-ups in Israel: “A bunch of guys meet up, usually over beer; one of them comes up with an idea, everybody gets excited and, minutes later, there’s a company.”

This is exactly how, together with three friends, he had founded Face.com, a company whose site was quickly integrated by Facebook.

“There’s also no fear of failure here,” added Hirsch. “Just a fear of not trying.”

Even Tel Aviv’s notorious traffic jams can’t stop the surge of creativity, especially since Israeli software engineer Ehud Shabtai invented Waze, a GPS navigator that gets inputs of real-time local traffic conditions from other drivers.

And of course let’s not forget that Tel Aviv has proven irresistible to even the anti-Israel crowd.

See if you can find the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it funny part.

A few days ago Dave posted a single image of an escalator with a message: now it’s time to reveal the truth!

(h/t Carol from Israelisms)

Turkish Tourist Office in Tel-Aviv

Years ago, when I finished my army service, a fellow Lone Soldier and I talked about where we might go on our post-Zahal wanderings. At the top of our list was Turkey. We had gone so far as to rough out a basic itinerary, including Istanbul (natch), Antalya, Konya, Cappadocia, and more.

In the end, all our planning was for naught, since we realized that we had nowhere near enough Shekels to pull it off, and we spent a week in the closer, cheaper Dahab, Sinai instead. Ooh, I should see how busy the Egyptian Tourism Office in Israel is these days. I’m guessing it’s doing better than the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. Spring!

But I digress. One place we didn’t plan to go on our hypothetical vacation was the Turkish capital, Ankara. In retrospect, that might have been the best place to visit, as it houses the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the reformer who tried to build a more modern, westernized Turkey from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1920s. And given that current Islamist Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems hellbent on dragging Turkey back into the era of Ottoman ‘grandeur’, Atatürk’s tomb seems a fitting metaphor for the times, because Erdoğan is presiding over the gradual death of Atatürk’s dreams.

At this point, given the naked hostility for Israel repeatedly exhibited by Erdoğan (the most notorious example being the 2010, political, non-humanitarian, expired medicine and IHH terrorist-carrying, non-apology-meriting Flotilla), you have to wonder if they even make enough Turkish Lira to break even after paying the rent on this place.

If you step back a few thousand years more you arrive at Jerusalem. Its true that the newer bits have been added relatively recently but as it is built across a sprawling and confusing array of hills it’s an extreme navigational challenge. Without GPS I’m pretty much lost from the moment I enter.

For driving in Israel I use the free iPhone app, Waze, which was developed here in Israel just up the road from me. Maybe because of this the Israeli version of Waze has an important feature for a GPS system in Israel: an option to “Keep within areas under Israeli authority”.

I never really paid attention to this option in the past but a couple of weeks ago I took a drive out to the Shomron and in order to do that I had to turn off this particular option. Well, of course, I forgot to turn it back on again.

On leaving Israpundit’s home, I turned on my sat nav, dialed my wife and started driving simultaneously. By the time I started paying attention to the route, I had a gut feel I wasn’t driving on routes I recognised but, just like Luke, I listened to the little voice and just followed the force (OK I blindly obeyed the GPS lady).

Jerusalem to Tel Aviv - yellow is the "normal" route

In the map above, blue is the route I took on this drive, yellow is the way I would normally go. The dashed line is the old border and you can see that the highway 1 route I’d normally take even cuts that border (at a place called Latrun).

I only really knew I was on a new road (for me anyway) when I drove by a “check point” on the other side of the road. My side, leaving Jerusalem, was completely unhindered. Entering Jerusalem there is what looks just like a toll booth and cars were passing mostly unhindered through it. A few miles later I passed through the checkpoint on my side of the road that is the pair of the one I saw earlier. This forced me to slow down but not even stop, as I drove through and back into fully controlled parts of Israel. Once again I was hardly inconvenienced by this checkpoint. And, unlike a toll plaza in the US, they didn’t even take money from me.

I’m sure I’ll be using this route again!

Police lift the terrorist to the ambulance (Photo: Moti Kimchi). Yes, we treat even terrorists with dignity

A Palestinian attacker wounded eight Israelis near a Tel Aviv nightclub early Monday, slamming into a police checkpoint with a stolen taxi and then stabbing others, police said.

The attacker was a Palestinian in his twenties from the city of Nablus, according to police spokeswoman Luba Samri.

Just before 2 a.m., the attacker stole a taxi in south Tel Aviv and then drove into a police checkpoint securing the street near a popular nightclub, she said.

He then got out of the car and stabbed passers-by, she said, while shouting “Allahu akbar” – Arabic for “God is great,” a phrase often used as a battle-cry by Islamic terrorists.

The wounded included four policemen and three civilians, Samri said.

One of the eight people hurt was listed in a serious condition in hospital and the others suffered light to moderate injuries, Samri said.

The Palestinian told police that he had planned the attack in advance and chose the ‘Haoman 17′ nightclub, where over 1,000 revelers celebrated the end of the summer vacation. He also bought the knife and carefully planned the taxi attack. Only the police’s presence, he claimed, disrupted his plans.

At first, witnesses believed that it was a traffic accident but soon realized that it was a terrorist attack when the Palestinian exited the taxi and started stabbing passers-by.

The perpetrator managed to stab several individuals before he was restrained by police. He was lightly injured in the scuffle and taken to Wolfson Hospital in Holon.
 
Aharon Yampel, an Ihud-Hatzalah volunteer told Ynet, “When we arrived at the scene we saw several people hurt as they lay on the street with stab wounds. Others suffered injuries after they were hit by a car. We provided initial medical treatment at the scene until ambulances evacuated them to hospital.”

Elad, another eyewitness, recalled, “We suddenly heard a large boom. I saw the taxi slamming into another car and then a man came out and shouted ‘Allahu akbar’. He stabbed some people. There was yelling and a lot of noise until a police unit arrived and restrained him.”

Another witness by the name of Daniel said, “We were outside the club after they didn’t let us in. We saw a car that slammed into another car. It was scary. If it weren’t for the checkpoint, he would have made it straight to us. It’s a miracle. We had only gone out to have some fun.”

The cab driver whose car was stolen by the Palestinian also arrived at the scene and was questioned by police. “I picked him up in the Jaffa area. He asked to go to the central bus station. When we arrived he suddenly pulled out a knife and stabbed me in the hand. He tossed me out of the vehicle and continued driving.”

According to the driver, at one point the Palestinian said, “I only want your car,” but then pulled out the knife. “I struggled with him but he managed to stab me.”

Tel Aviv police chief Aaron Aksol said, “There is no doubt that the border police checkpoint prevented a much graver catastrophe. Our preparedness following terrorist warnings has proven itself.”

Israel police chief Yohanan Danino also arrived at the scene of the attack and praised the border police preparedness. He explained that police forces were on alert ahead of the end of Ramadan and that’s why the checkpoint was set up near the nightclub.

Meanwhile, it could have been a lot worse. Checkpoints save lives.

Two trucks plowed down a busy street in Tel Aviv on Sunday morning, crashing into a bus, several vehicles and a number of pedestrians.

The drivers then sped off, leaving behind at least five casualties, one of them in critical condition. The driver of one of the trucks has been arrested.

There were immediate speculations that the incident was an attempted terrorist attack.

And why wouldn’t this be the speculation, given today is their “Naqba Day”, on which they commemorate Israel’s establishment as the great disaster and engage in violent fun for the whole family.

Updates (Israel time; latest from top)

12:26PM: Another witness has claimed he heard the accused terrorist say “Allahu Akbar” and “death to Jews.”

 A witness who claims he stopped the “terrorist” who hit several cars on Tel Aviv’s Bar Lev Street Sunday, said he initially thought the driver had just lost control of his breaks.

Arik Levy told Israel radio that when he went to go help the driver, he saw him continue to hit cars and street lights, and heard him saying “Allahu Akbar” and “death to Jews.”

Levy said he ran up to the driver, the two struggled for a short time, and then police arrived at the scene after 10 minutes.  

12:12PM: Footage from the aftermath of the attack.

11:52AM: Photos from the scene (received from ZAKA)

11:42AM: The truck driver has claimed his tire exploded, causing him to lose control of vehicle (and apparently his anger as he attacked people after getting out of his truck).

11:36AM: In case it wasn’t already obvious this was a terror attack, here is what another eyewitness saw:

“He went on and crashed into a bus. He got out and began to go crazy, throwing things at people. There was this poor innocent girl — he struck her on the head. She just fell down, and now people are treating her. What can I tell you? A terrorist attack.”

11:30AM: Hamas on Twitter:

One military Zionist killed in the occupied territories on Nakba “catastrophe” day, Saturday 15/5/2011

See how they view all Israeli civilians? And we are expected to make peace with these people.

11:12AM: Eyewitness:

“The truck driver drove like a madman. He didn’t care for anything standing in his way. At first I thought it was a car accident or that the driver lost control, but with the truck’s speed – it was an indication this was probably a terror attack.”

10:50AM: The Arab driver reportedly “struck vehicles for two kilometers,”  but claims it was an accident.

I smell a (Naqba) rat.

10:45AM: One dead (a 40-year-old man), and at least 13 wounded. And the detained driver happens to be an Israeli Arab.

From the Duran Duran Wiki:

“Tel Aviv” is the Instrumental ninth and final track on Duran Duran’s debut album.

The song was originaly titled “On My Own in Tel-Aviv”, had lyrics, and was one of many songs that Simon Le Bon wrote and had in his notebook of poems he brought with him to his audition for the band. Simon has also stated that the song is about when he was in Israel working on a Kibbutz. The song was also the first to be recorded by the band, and was originaly recorded at AIR Studios London and was a completely different song (and, according to Nick, the only thing that remains on the released version is the title)

“Tel Aviv” is primarily instrumental but does feature some ethereal vocalizations by Simon, possibly words in Yiddish or Arabic. Srings were arranged by Richard Myhill and it was the first time Duran Duran used an orchestra.

According to the band, the album version of the song was used as the opener for their first concerts, however they had a recorded version of the song and did not actually perform it. In recent years the band have in fact performed the song live, at times even accompanied by a full orchestra (Violinists, ect.) in order to authentically recreate the live strings found on the original recording

And what inspired me to post this song today? This news of course.

Update: More on Le Bon’s time on Kibbutz:

Duran Duran singer Simon le Bon wrote the song Tel Aviv about his time in Israel. The bed he slept in for three months in 1979 at Kibbutz Gvulot was later turned into a shrine. “My time here was . . . the first time I had lived away from my parents. So I have an affection for the country,” he said.