Discretion has never been her strong suit. But Cherie Blair set a new low yesterday when she told how her husband ‘still excites me, in all possible ways’.

She had been asked how the couple spend their time together when the former prime minister returns from his frequent money-spinning trips abroad.

Mrs Blair giggled and told her interviewer: ‘Tony and I have been married 31 years and known each other more like 35 – and even after 35 years he still excites me in all possible ways.’

The Blairs have a long track record of boasting about their love life. Mr Blair, 57, once claimed he could make love ‘at least’ five times a night.

Last year he was nominated for a ‘bad sex’ literary award for a passage in his autobiography in which he recounted how his wife had ‘strengthened’ him on the eve of his bid for the Labour leadership in 1994.

He wrote: ‘I needed that love Cherie gave me, selfishly. I devoured it to give me strength. I was an animal following my instinct, knowing I would need every ounce of emotional power to cope with what lay ahead.’

In the past, the couple have also claimed to be members of the Mile High Club.

But they were not always so shameless. Mrs Blair, now 56, recorded in her own memoirs that their youngest son Leo, born when she was 45, had been conceived as she had been too embarrassed to pack her contraceptive ‘equipment’ on a trip to Balmoral, where guests’ bags are unpacked by staff.

In her 2008 autobiography, Speaking For Myself, she wrote: ‘As usual up there, it had been bitterly cold, and what with one thing and another …,’ she wrote, describing the night her son Leo was conceived.’

Don’t thank me, I’m a giver.

While Tony Blair can look forward to cracking open the Bollinger on New Year’s Eve at his £5.75 million mansion in Bucks, ­having added to his wealth by at least £20 million since he left No 10, things are very different for his wife’s pretty, blonde half-sister, Lauren Booth.

Indeed, so poverty-stricken is Lauren, 43, that she has just been forced to declared herself bankrupt.

Lauren, a writer, broadcaster and human rights activist who recently converted to Islam in an extra­ordinary epiphany after she visited a shrine in Iran, is named in the London Gazette as having ­petitioned for bankruptcy in the run-up to Christmas.

Among other things, her ­insolvency means she will have ­difficulty using a credit card, she cannot be a company director for up to 15 years, cannot run a ­company, is forbidden to stand as an MP, and there may even be problems over her bank account.

Extraordinarily, one of her ­creditors is Cherie, who lent her £15,000 last year, but which ­Lauren has failed to pay back. I gather Lauren wrote to her wealthy sister in April pleading for help, and Cherie reluctantly agreed to bail her out.

Cherie, who shares the same father with Lauren — Till Death Us Do Part actor Tony Booth — understandably felt Lauren had a cheek to ask her for money, ­considering how critical Lauren has been over Blair’s role in the war in Iraq. She has written at length on the subject.

Mother-of-two Lauren’s financial plight comes as she goes through a divorce from her actor husband Craig Darby, having returned to Britain last year after their dream of a new life in France collapsed.

Now giving a flat in Muswell Hill, North London, as her address to the Bankruptcy Division of the High Court, Lauren admits her finances have been in a mess for some time.

She is in negative equity on her farmhouse in the Dordogne, where she moved six years ago, and she has described how her French idyll went wrong, saying: ‘I never trained as an accountant. We were soon in trouble, with the banks and with the taxman.’

I am told: ‘Cherie was adamant it would be strictly a short-term loan till her sister could get back on her feet. Cherie had a lawyer draw up a contract which stretched to ­several pages and insisted ­Lauren sign it before she wrote out the cheque.

‘She wanted everything done legally so she would be sure of ­getting her money back.’

Now Cherie will have to line up with all the other creditors.

Looks like Booth may have trouble buying things next time she is in a grocery store. I guess Iran’s Press TV doesn’t pay that well after all. Perhaps some of her other friends are willing to help?

In the meantime, I am just waiting for Booth to blame her predicament on the Zionists.

Tony Blair’s sister-in-law has converted to Islam after having a ‘holy experience’ in Iran.

Broadcaster and journalist Lauren Booth, 43 – Cherie Blair’s half-sister – said she now wears a hijab head covering whenever she leaves her home, prays five times a day and visits her local mosque ‘when I can’.

She decided to become a Muslim six weeks ago after visiting the shrine of Fatima al-Masumeh in the city of Qom.

‘It was a Tuesday evening and I sat down and felt this shot of spiritual morphine, just absolute bliss and joy,’ she told The Mail on Sunday.

When she returned to Britain, she decided to convert immediately.

‘Now I don’t eat pork and I read the Koran every day. I’m on page 60.

‘I also haven’t had a drink in 45 days, the longest period in 25 years. The strange thing is that since I decided to convert I haven’t wanted to touch alcohol, and I was someone who craved a glass of wine or two at the end of a day.’

Refusing to discount the possibility that she might wear a burka, she said: ‘Who knows where my spiritual journey will take me?’

Before her awakening in Iran, she had been ‘sympathetic’ to Islam and has spent considerable time working in Palestine. ‘I was always impressed with the strength and comfort it gave,’ she said of the religion.

Miss Booth, who works for Press TV, the English-language Iranian news channel, has been a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq.

In August 2008 she travelled to Gaza by ship from Cyprus, along with 46 other activists, to highlight Israel’s blockade of the territory. She was subsequently refused entry into both Israel and Egypt.

In 2006 she was a contestant on the ITV reality show I’m A Celebrity .  .  . Get Me Out Of Here!, donating her fee to the Palestinian relief charity Interpal.

She said she hoped her conversion would help Mr Blair change his presumptions about Islam.

Notice the timing of her decision – it seems to coincide with her decision to divorce her husband, who was left severely injured after suffering a motorbike accident (precipitated by an insensitive Facebook status change by Booth).

The question is did her interest in converting to Islam seal the deal as far as her marriage was concerned? Was she willing to care for her husband as an invalid, but not an infidel?

It looks to me like she traded one kind of morphine shot for another.

Update: Booth announcing her “reversion” live at the GPU.

Update: I just watched the above video in its entirety for the first time, and was disgusted  by the way Booth exploited her daughter.

I said disgusted – not surprised – because as I was the first to blog over a year ago, she has exploited her children before.

Update: Booth’s claim that she reads the Koran every day and is on page 60 reminds me of this scene (the first 20 seconds) from one of my favorite movies, The Frisco Kid.

"This glass is half empty!"

A peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians will not be achieved in the foreseeable future, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday.

Speaking at a conference of his ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, Lieberman said a complete peace agreement that included an end of the conflict and Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state was unattainable, even with significant concessions and territorial compromise.

Peace was impossible, “not next year and not for the next generation”, Lieberman said.

While I think he has a point, he is being criticized for publicly expressing his pessimistic sentiments.

“This is, undoubtedly, a problem,” said a cabinet minister. “Can you imagine what would have happened if the Palestinian foreign minister had made such a statement? We’d all be jumping down his throat.”

I doubt it. PA officials are constantly making worse statements. For instance, I don’t recall Muhammad Dahlan’s throat being the target of any Israeli officials’ jumping.

Fatah official Muhammad Dahlan called Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu a “con-man” on Sunday, saying that he will destroy the peace process, in an interview with Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:12PM: Yesterday, I blogged about the Time magazine article entitled Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace.

Well, it gets better. Guess what is the lead story of that edition of Time?

5:24PM: I’ve worked on perhaps the web’s most definitive list of pro-Israel celebrities.

2:42PM: Terror supporter and potential Biggest Loser contestant Lauren Booth has taken a swipe at her brother-in-law Tony Blair for “supporting” Israel.

From Iran.

Dear Tony,

Congratulations on your political memoir becoming an instant bestseller. I’m in Iran and have the only copy in the country. I can tell you, it’s so fiercely fought over, it’s worth its weight in WMD’s. Note to Random House; have ‘A Journey’ translated into Farsi and Arabic asap, it’ll fly off the shelves in this part of the world.

Tony, yesterday I attended the Al Quds day protest in Tehran. You may have heard of it? It’s the rally where Iranians gather to protest against Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, including the Holy city of Jerusalem.

I’m being sarcastic by asking if you’ve heard of Al Quds day, because I know you have. It is your very worst nightmare, right? After all, Tehran is the place where politics and Islam intertwine.

Personally I’ve never understood this fear of ‘political Islam’ it seems to me that religious people should always be educated on world events rather than kept in ignorance. Like say, Mid-West Christian Zionists in the US. The kind of folk who can’t find their home city on a map of their state but are certain they hate Islam even if they are not sure whether it is a type of curry or a foreign make of veh-ic-ule.

Anyway, yesterday, I stood in the midst of more than one million Iranian Muslims all chanting in unison ‘Marg Bar Isre-hell!’ and ‘Marg Bar Am-ri-ca!’ You know what that means Tony I’m sure; ‘Down with Israel, down with America’. The men, women and children around me withstood a day of no water and no food (it’s called Ramadan, Tony, it’s a fast). Coping with hunger and thirst in the hundred degrees heat, as if it were nothing. They can withstand deprivation in the Muslim world. Here in Iran they feel proud to suffer in order to express solidarity with the people of Palestine. It’s kind of like the way you express solidarity with America, except without illegal chemical weapons and a million civilian deaths.

Some mothers at the rally wept, not out of hatred for ‘the West’ but out of empathy for the mothers of Rafah, Khan Younis, Nablus and Jenin. Do you recognise these place names Tony, as Middle East peace envoy you really should. Israel has massacred children in all of these cities in recent years. Didn’t you know?

Today when the streets of London reverberate with cries of ‘Allahuakbar!’ and ‘Down Down Israel.’ Christians and Jews will join the thunderous cries of ‘Down Down Israel, marching shoulder to shoulder with the ‘political’ Muslims you say you fear so much.

Perhaps you believe that I am in danger in Iran, especially on a day like Al Quds. Well here again Tony, you’ve been fed and have consumed in its entirety, a massive lie. The lie that says when Muslims express an opinion in groups, in public, it is always spurred on by hatred of ‘us’ infidels. As if all protests that are led by Muslim communities are a kind of long held grudge against the Crusades.

Perhaps they should be more, not less angry here than they are, Tony. Because having read the postscript to your bestseller its clear you are on a modern Crusade.

The ‘conflict’ between Palestine and Israel is according to you all about religion and has nothing at all to do with the ethnic cleansing of the Arab population, nor the degradation of those who remain beneath the boots of their Israeli occupiers. You say that Arabs have and always will see ‘Jews’ as enemies. For God’s sake Tony, do your history. And if you’re going to run a ‘Faith Foundation’ then better get up on Islam 101 don’t you think? Did your pals in Tel Aviv forget to tell you how many thousands of Jews lived in Historic Palestine in harmony with their Arab neighbours before 1948? Do you really not know that even today tens of thousands of Jews reside contentedly in Iran?

I’ve sat with Muslim families, those whose children have been burned by Israeli/US phosphorous bombs. Those who are still suffering hunger due to the Israel siege of Gaza. Those who have lived through the early days of sanctions against Iran when they needed food vouchers just to live. And every single Muslim in these suffering families has the same message; ‘We don’t hate anyone for their race or their religion. We cannot hate Jews they are in our holy book. It is against the teachings of the Koran.’ But Tony let me ask you this. Why should any people, Muslim or otherwise, be expected to put up with this kind of constant threats from you and your bosses in Tel Aviv and Washington? Do you have any understanding of what it is like to live in Gaza? Under siege, attacked with chemical weapons, your children’s schools razed to the ground by Israeli missiles, your hospitals shelled, your electricity limited, your water undrinkable?

Actually Tony I think you are a sympathetic person. I actually think that you do feel twinges of pain at the hardships suffered by millions in the Middle East as a direct result of your support for Israel. Then you put that feeling to one side, because on a fundamental level – you think ‘they’ deserve it don’t you?

In your book you say you knew full well how many Beirut homes were flattened, how many civilians died in Lebanon in 2006. Yet you dismiss Lebanese rage about Israeli occupation of the ‘Sheba Farm’ as being an irrelevance, about a ‘tiny’ amount of land. You cannot see it as part of the constant pressure on Lebanese society as a whole by their heavily armed aggressive Israeli neighbour. You see it as: ‘Israel is attacked. Israel strikes back.’ As if Israel lives in placid peace, being kindly to all around it in between these massacres.

As other world leaders came out to demand Israel immediately cease its 2006 bombing raids on Lebanese cities, you stayed silent. ‘If I had condemned Israel’ you say in your book ‘I would have been more than dishonest. It would have undermined my world view.’

Your world view is that Muslims are mad, bad and dangerous; a contagion to be contained. Your final chapter is a must read here in the Middle East Tony, congratulations! For it lays out the ‘them’ and ‘us’ agenda of your friends in Washington and Tel Aviv.

In the final chapter you say; ‘we need a religious counter attack’ against Islam. And by ‘Islam’ you mean the Al Quds rallies, the Palestinian intifada (based on an anti-Apartheid struggle Tony, NOT religious bigotry), against every Arab who fails to put their arms in the air as the F16 missiles rain on their homes and refugee camps and sing a rousing chorus of  ‘Imagine all the people…’

When you say ‘extremism’ must be ‘controlled and beaten’ you mean that you and your kind of morally bankrupt (but filthy rich) world leaders wants control over the rising solidarity spreading through the Ummah and being joined by activists of all creeds on the streets of Paris, London, Bradford, Rome. ‘Not only extremism must be defeated’ you have written but ‘the narrative’ ‘ has to be assailed.’

Iran is indeed the place where Islamic tradition meets political action.

They are highly aware of the history of this region, the wrongs perpetrated by Israel against Palestine and the political machinations of the US and the UK governments to isolate them. All things considered are nice as the people have been during my stay. I wouldn’t recommend coming over on a book tour though…

Meanwhile, besides possibly encouraging Iran to bomb Israel, what is Booth doing there? Trying to find a new husband to replace the one she dumped?

12:24PM: Here is the full statement from the Hollywood numbskulls who signed a letter of support for the Israeli actors who declared they would not perform in Judea or Samaria, as well as a full list of the aforesaid numbskulls.

Text of the statement:

On August 27th, dozens of Israeli actors, directors, and playwrights made the brave decision not to perform in Ariel, one of the largest of the West Bank settlements, which by all standards of international law are clearly illegal.  As American actors, directors, critics and playwrights, we salute our Israeli counterparts for their courageous decision.

Most of us are involved in daily compromises with wrongful acts. When a group of people suddenly have the clarity of mind to see that the next compromise looming up before them is an unbearable one  — and when they somehow find the strength to refuse to cross that line  –  we can’t help but be overjoyed and inspired and grateful.

It’s thrilling to think that these Israeli theatre artists have refused to allow their work to be used to normalize a cruel occupation which they know to be wrong, which violates international law and which is impeding the hope for a just and lasting peace for Israelis an Palestinians alike.  They’ve made a wonderful decision, and they deserve the respect of people everywhere who dream of justice. We stand with them.

*Statement organizers and signatories represent a wide range of political opinions and perspectives, but have come together for the sole purpose of making a joint statement on this one critical issue.
**All identifications and affiliations are for identification purposes only and do not imply endorsements by any institutions

Ed Asner
Actor
8 time Emmy award Winner (more than any other male actor); Former president Screen Actors Guild, lead voice in Pixar’s Up, Mary Tyler Moore

Theodore Bikel
Actor, Folk Singer, Musician
Co-founder of the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv; president of the Associated Actors and Artistes of America; Academy Award nominee; Tony Award nominee; actor in film, TV and theater; vocalist

Eve Ensler
Playwright, preformer
The Vagina Monologues; Obie Award winner; Guggenheim Fellowship

Tony Kushner
Playwright; Screenwriter;
Pulitzer Prize winner for Angels in America; Tony Award winner; Emmy Award winner; Drama Desk Award winner; Was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award; Co-author of Munich

Miriam Margolyes
Actor
Portrayed Professor Sprout in Harry Potter; BAFTA Winner

Cynthia Nixon
Actress
Portrayed Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series Sex and the City; Emmy, Tony and Grammy Award-winning actress

Mandy Patinkin
Actor, Vocalist
Actor in Yentl, the Princess Bride (portrayed Inigo Montoya), Sunday in the Park with George; Vocalist, (Mamaloshen), Tony Award winner

Harold Prince
Director, Producer,
21 Tony Awards winner (Pajama Game, Cabaret, West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, Evita, Phantom of the Opera), National Medal of the Arts Recipient

Vanessa Redgrave
actress
The only British actress to ever have won the Oscar, Emmy, Tony, Canes, Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild awards; Mission: Impossible, Mary Queen of Scots, Atonement.

James Schamus
Producer, Screenwriter, Film Historian
BAFTA Award Winner; producer of Brokeback Mountain, co-writer and producer of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm, Eat Drink Man Woman, Academy Award nominee, CEO Focus Features

Wallace Shawn
Actor, Playwright, Translator
Actor in Princess Bride (portrayed Vizzini) My Dinner With Andre, Vanya on 42nd St; playwright of The Fever, The Designated Mourner; translator of Three Penny Opera by  Bertoldt Brecht

Jennifer Tilly
Actress
Portrayed Olive Neal in Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway, Fabulous Baker Boys, Liar Liar, Bound; Academy Award Nominee

Liz Diamond
Scholar
Chair, Directing Dept., Yale School of Drama

Andre Gregory
Actor, Director
My Dinner With Andre

Lynn Nottage
Playwright
Winner of 2009 Pulitzer Prize; winner of 2007 MacArthur Genius Award

Sheldon Harnick
Lyricist
Pulitzer Prize Winner, Fiddler on the Roof, Tony Award Winner

Paula Vogel
Playwright, Scholar
Pulitzer Prize Winner, Eugene O’Neill Chair, Playwriting Department -Yale School of Drama

Bill Irwin
Actor, Mime, Choreographer
Winner two Tony Awards ;Winner of the National Endowment for the Arts Choreographer’s Fellowship; Guggenheim, Fulbright and MacArthur Fellowships

Sarah Schulman
Novelist; Playwright

David Adjmi
Playwright
Steinberg Playwright Award, the Bush Artists Fellowship, and the Kesselring Fellowship for Drama, named in the New Yorker as up and coming playwright

Najla Said
Actor, Playwright
Daughter of Edward Said; “Palestine,” Her one-woman Off Broadway play is a coming-of-age story about Ms. Said’s journey to become an Arab-American on her own terms.

James Bundy
Dean, Yale School of Drama;  Artistic Director, Yale Repertory Theatre

Kathleen Chalfant
Actor
Obie Award Winner, Drama Desk Winner, Tony Award Nominee

Ruth Reichl
writer; PBS Television host
former restaurant critic, NYTimes, former editor in chief, Gourmet magazine, PBS television series host, memoirist

Edward Einhorn
Director, Playwright, Novelist, Executive Director of the Association of Jewish Theatre

Oskar Eustis
Artistic Director, The Public Theater

Deborah Eisenberg
Playwright, Author, Actor, MacArthur Fellow

Bruce Allardice
Managing Director
Ping Chong & Co.

Philip Arnoult
Director, Center for International Theatre Development (CITD)

Anthony Arnove
Author and Editor
Co-Directed (with Howard Zinn and Chris Moore) and Executive Produced “The People Speak (film)

Caron Atlas
Cultural Organizer and Consultant
Founding director of the American Festival Project, a national coalition of activist artists

Arthur Aviles
Artistic Director
Artistic Director, The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre

David Barlow
Actor, Writer, Performance Artist

Laura Barnett
Theater Educator, Performance Artist, Director

George Bartenieff
Actor
Obie Award Winner

Mark Barton
Lighting Designer

John Bell
Director
Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, Puppeteer, Scholar, Great Small Works.

Melia Bensussen
Director
Obie Award Winning Director; Chair of Emerson College Department of Performing Arts

Eric Bentley
Theatre scholar, critic, author, playwright, editor and translator

Theodore S. Berger
Executive Director of the New York Foundation for the Arts for thirty years

Susan Bernfield
Artistic Director, New Georges

Philip Bither
Senior curator, Walker Arts Center

Linda Chapman
Associate Artistic Director, New York Theatre Workshop

Rachel Chavkin
Director; Founder and Artistic director of the TEAM (the Theater of the Emerging American Moment)

Trudi Cohen
Puppeteer, Theater Artist
Great Small Works

Kia Corthron
Playwright

Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas
Playwright

Clare Coss
Playwright

Alex Courtney
Stage, Film and Television Actor

Tim Cusack
Artistic Director, Theatre Askew

Savitri D.
Director
The Church of Life After Shopping

Matthew Dellapina
Actor

Ivor Dembina
Comedian

David J. Diamond
Theatre consultant, Producer

Elin Diamond
Critic, Scholar

Sally Eberhardt
Theatres Against War (THAW)

John Clinton Eisner
Artistic Director, Lark Play Development Center

Bertie Ferdman, Ph.D.
Artistic Director, ExPgirl; Theatre Artist, Curator, Producer, Educator

Corey Fischer
Actor, Playwright
Playwright of See Under: Love; co-founder of the Traveling Jewish Theater,(now the Jewish Theater San Francisco)

Elinor Fuchs
Critic; Scholar, Yale School of Drama

Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros
Playwright
2004 finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Adam Greenfield
Director of New Play Development, Playwright Horizons

David Greenspan
Actor, Award-Winning Playwright

Kathryn Grody
Actor; Writer
Obie Award Winner

Jason Grote
Playwright, Screenwriter

Del Hamilton
co-Founder and Artistic Director, 7 Stages

Karen Hartman
Playwright

David Herskovits
Founder and Artistic Director, Target Margin Theater

Joan Holden
Award-Winning Playwright

Jeffrey Horowitz
Founder and Artistic Director, Theater for a New Audience
Advisory Board of The Shakespeare Society and Artistic Directorate of London’s Globe Theatre, Artistic Advisor to the Shakespeare Globe Centre (USA).

Holly Hughes
Performance Artist, Guggenheim Fellow
One of the “NEA 4″, whose funding was vetoed for gay content

Birgit Huppuch
Actor

Julia Jarcho
Playwright, Director, Performer

Morgan Jenness
Dramaturge

John Jesurun
Writer, Director, Multi-Media Artist

Jeffrey M. Jones
Playwright, Curator -
Little Theatre @ Dixon Place, Pataphysics @ The Flea

Melanie Joseph
Artistic Producer
The Foundry Theatre

Chris Kam
Independent Producer

Stephen Kaplin
Puppeteer, Theater Designer/Performer
Great Small Works and Chinese Theatre Works

Melissa Kievman
Director

Josh Kornbluth
Monologist

Aaron Landsman
Independent Artist

Paul Lazar
Co-Artistic Director Big Dance Theater

Herbert Leibowitz
Writer and Editor

Maxinne Rhea Leighton
Author

Robert H. Leonard
Director, Professor, Department of Theatre Arts, Virginia Tech

Gideon Lester
Dramaturge and Curator
Former associate artistic director, American Repertory Theatre; former Acting Artistic Director, American Repertory Theatre

Roberta Levitow
Co-Founder, Theatre Without Borders

Irene Lewis
Artistic Director
Center Stage, Baltimore, Maryland

Ethan Lipton
Playwright

Casey Llewellyn
Theater Artist

Quincy Long
Playwright

John Carroll Lynch
Actor

Kirk Lynn
Co-Producing Artistic Director
Rude Mechs, Austin, TX

Matthew Maguire
Co-Artistic Director, Creation Production Company

Matthew Maher
Actor

Judith Malina
Actor Director
Founder and Artistic Director, The Living Theatre

Karen Malpede
Playwright, Theater Three Collaborative

Nina Mankin
Dramaturge, Writer

Emily Mann
Artistic Director/Playwright
McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton, NJ

Deborah Margolin
Playwright, Actor, Scholar

Vijay Mathew
Co-Director, American Voices New Play Institute

Marin Mazzie
Actress, Singer

Ellen McLaughlin
Playwright; Actor

Erin Mee
Director, Scholar
Swarthmore theater arts professor

Greg Mehrten
Actor, Director, Writer

David Michalek
Artist, Photographer
Visiting Faculty Member – Yale Divinity School

Tyler Micoleau
Lighting Designer

Tim Miller
Performance Artist
One of the “NEA 4″, whose funding was vetoed for gay content

Jennifer Miller
Performance Artist, director
Founder and Artistic Director of Circus Amok

Steve Moore
Artistic Director
Physical Plant Theater

Susan Mosakowski
Playwright
Co-Artistic Director Creation Production Company

David Moscow
Actor

Erika Munk
Critic, Professor
Yale School of Drama, theater critic

Tom Nelis
Actor

Jim Nicola
Artistic Director
New York Theatre Workshop

Annie-B Parson
Director
Co-Founder, Artistic director Big Dance Theater, NYFA and Guggenheim Fellow

Sally Ann Parsons
Costumer, Craftsman, Designer

Shailja Patel
Sundance Theatre Fellow 2010

Katie Pearl
Director

Sybille Pearson
Playwright
Rockefeller Playwrights Fellowship; founding member of The Playwrights Circle at The New York Theatre Workshop; an Artistic Resident at the Vineyard Theater

Ralph Pena
Artistic Director, Ma Yi Theater

Carla Peterson
Director
Artistic Director, Dance Theater Workshop

Brian Pickett
Theater Artist and Educator
Member Steering Committee – Theaters Against War (THAW)

Catherine Porter
Director
Co-Artistic Director Peculiar Works Project, Obie Award Winner

Reno
Comedian

Gordon Rogoff
Theater Critic; Director; Professor of Theater
Yale School of Drama; Obie Award Winner

Jenny Romaine
Puppeteer, Theater Artist
Great Small Works

Avital Ronell
Writer, Academic, Literary Critic

Ken Rus Schmoll
Director

Brian H. Scott
Theatrical Designer

Regine Anna Seckinger, Ph.D.
Advisory Board Member, Rude Mechanicals, Austin, TX

Jamil Shamasdin
Actor

Peggy Shaw
Performance Artist, Actor, Playwright

Christopher Shinn
Playwright,
Obie Award Winner, Guggenheim Fellow

Jeanmarie Simpson
Theatre/Film Artist

Michael Singer
Television News Producer
Former producer, CBS News

Alisa Solomon
Theater Critic
Director of Arts Concentration, School of Journalism, Columbia

Bonnie Stein
Performing Arts Administrator, Manager, Project Producer and Coordinator, Executive Director
GOH Productions

Kris Stone
Stage Designer

Mark Sussman
Scholar, Puppeteer Director.
Great Small Works; Concordia University

Caridad Svich
Playwright, Songwriter, Translator, Editor

Bill Talen
Director
The Church of Life After Shopping

Kathleen Tolan
Playwright, Actor

Basil Twist
Puppeteer
Obie Award Winner

Charlie Varon
Playwright, Performer

Naomi Wallace
Playwright, Screenwriter

Anne Washburn
Playwright
Guggenheim Fellow

Donya K. Washington
Director

Stephen Webber
Actor

Brenda Wehle
Actor

Mac Wellman
Playwright, Author, Poet, Scholar
Donald I. Fine Professor of Play writing at Brooklyn College

Anabelle Winograd
Writer, Critic, Educator

Eunice Wong
Actor

Kristina Wong
Solo Performer and Writer.
Recipient of awards from Creative Capital, MAPFUND, two Creation Funds from the National Performance Network, three grants from the Center for Cultural Innovation, three Durfee ARC Grants, and four Artist-in-Residence Awards from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Had also received residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Hermitage in Englewood, FL.

Susan Yankowitz
Award-Winning Playwright and Librettist

David Zellnick
Playwright, Screenwriter, Lyricist

12:16PM: Dubai’s police chief is back in the news, this time blaming the UAE’s crackdown on Blackberry services on the Satan brothers (Big and Little).

Concerns over Israeli access to BlackBerry data, and the use of the device by the United States to spy on the United Arab Emirates are behind the Gulf state’s moves to curb the smartphone, Dubai’s police chief said.

“The Unites States is the primary beneficiary of having no controls over the BlackBerry, as it has an interest to spy on the UAE,” Dhahi Khalfan Tamim said in remarks carried by the website of the daily al-Khaleej on Friday.

“The West has accused us of curbing the liberties of BlackBerry users, while America, Israel, Britain and other countries are allowed access to all transferred data,” Tamim added.

Tamim, who has been outspoken in blaming Israeli agents for the assassination of a top Palestinian militant at a Dubai hotel in January, did not say why Washington had an interest in spying on Western-allied UAE.

9:15AM: Old and busted: Gaza flotilla.

New hotness: Gaza flytilla.

The California-based Free Palestine Movement has announced plans to send an airplane filled with humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, Channel 2 reported on Sunday. According to the organization’s Web site, activists plan to “challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza by air.”

The group reportedly plans to break the blockade by entering Gaza’s air space without flying over Israeli or Egyptian territory. Success, the Web site said, depends on showing that the effort poses no military threat.

Channel 2 identified the aid as consisting of communication equipment.

The Free Palestine Movement took part in the flotilla that attempted to reach the Gaza Strip on May 31, ending with the deaths of nine Turkish activists aboard the Mavi Marmara.

Israellycool reader Michael writes:

I e-mailed these idiots to ask them how they plan to find a destination when their nav equipment will be jammed, and that if they actually cared, instead of wasting money on chartering a plane and fueling it for their stunt, they could use it to buy more aid that’s probably already abundant in gaza and have it transferred via the land crossings.  What a bunch of numbskulls.

No argument from me there.

5:48AM: Here is the IDF-released footage (which I blogged about yesterday) showing people removing long-range rockets from a home in southern Lebanon and transferring them to alternative storage centers, after the arms cache exploded.

5:38AM: A number of Hollywood numbskulls – silent while Israel has endured terrorism – are now speaking up against the “real” obstacle to peace.

More than 150 American actors, writers, directors and other artists signed a letter of support for the Israeli actors who declared they would not perform in the West Bank.

The American signatories include Cynthia Nixon, who plays Miranda on “Sex and the City”; Mandy Patinkin, who played Inigo Montoya in “The Princess Bride”; and character actor and writer Wallace Shawn, who played the principal in “Clueless.”

—-

The American letter calls the Israelis’ refusal brave, notes that Ariel is one of the largest settlements in the West Bank and calls it illegal by any standard.

The signatories said that most of them faced daily compromises with things they found unacceptable, and that when a group of people decided they would make no more compromises and found the strength to refuse, this inspired them and filled them with hope.

The American artists were moved to know the Israelis had refused to allow their work to become part of what they called making the cruel occupation normal and accepted, they said in the letter. The occupation is an obstacle to hope and a just and sustainable peace for Israelis and Palestinians, they added.

The signatories said the Israeli artists’ decision should be appreciated by those who seek justice around the world.

The letter made waves in the artistic community in the United States. On Friday, several actors called the Israeli Consulate to ask what they should do, and were advised by the cultural attache not to interfere in internal Israeli affairs, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

Actually, both Mandy Patinkin and Wallace Shawn were in the Princess Bride.

Mandy Patinkin:

Wallace Shawn:

I don’t know if I will be able to ever enjoy the movie again.

************************************************************************************

September specials at the Okeanus Hotels in Israel.  Suites, Sea, and Style.

Rooms start at only $170. Click here for more details.

************************************************************************************

Just kidding.

The head of Amnesty International’s Finnish branch, Frank Johansson, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that he stands by his statement that Israel is a “scum state.”

Writing in his blog, which appears on the Web site of Finland’s third largest newspaper Iltalehti, Johansson wrote on Monday that “A friend of mine who works in Israel was visiting [and] while piling wood in the shed, we got to [talking about] his favourite topic. [After] several years of residence in the Holy Land, he has come to the conclusion that ‘Israel is a scum state.’ Based on my own visit[s], which occurred during the 1970s and for the last time in the 1990s, I agree.”

—-

Asked why he termed Israel a “scum state,” Johansson told the Post in a telephone interview that it was because Israel has “repeatedly flouted international law,” and due to his “personal experiences inside and outside of Israel with meeting Israelis.”

Johansson said that his remarks were not anti-Semitic. “I actually praise Breaking the Silence,” he said, referring to an Israeli organization claiming to collect and share testimonies of former IDF soldiers over human rights violations they allegedly witnessed, while rarely providing names of troops, dates and locations of these incidents.

Asked whether there are other countries aside from Israel that, according to him, meet the definition of a “scum state,” Johansson did not specify any, but noted that there are “Russian officials” who meet the criteria.

The Amnesty International official said: “I have been on record on Finnish TV as saying George Bush is the biggest executioner in the Western Hemisphere, [I] use strong language… I am writing those [blogs] in my capacity as a private person, not as an Amnesty official.”

However, Iltalehti’s Web site clearly provides readers with his title as “director of the Finnish branch of Amnesty International,” which appears above his blog.

NGO Monitor chief Gerald Steinberg condemned Johansson’s remarks in the context of his organization as a whole. The head of the watchdog organization, which tracks anti-Israel activity among NGOs, told the Post in an e-mail on Tuesday that “Amnesty International has promoted an intense anti-Israel ideology, resulting in statements like these. Such one-sided ideological campaigns, with false allegations of war crimes, are entirely inconsistent with Amnesty’s claim to support ethical principles and universal human rights.

“Amnesty International’s new secretary general, Salil Shetty, must immediately condemn this immoral statement by the head of the Finnish chapter, freeze links to the chapter until he resigns, and take measures to end Amnesty’s central role in demonizing Israel,” he added.

Also Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International’s headquarters in London, Susanne Flood, told the Post in a telephone interview that “Amnesty would never use an expression like this toward the State of Israel, or any other state.”

Flood said that Johansson used the phrase “creep state” to describe Israel, rather than “scum,” as the initial English translation of the Finnish word found. Native Finnish speakers from Tundra Tabloids said the Finnish term used by Johansson to denigrate Israel is a “highly derogatory term,” and is frequently translated as “scum,” “scum bag” or “douche bag.”

Asked if AI plans to discipline or sack Johansson, Flood said she would have to check on his employment status, but noted that the organization generally does not comment on human resource matters.

Pressed if he is singling out Israel for disparate treatment – a manifestation of modern anti-Semitism according to some critics – Flood said that one “has to look at the full context of his articles.”

She added that Johansson assured her that he is not using his title to write the anti-Israeli blogs. But, when shown that his title was indeed being used in his blog, she conceded to this fact.

The deputy head of Mission for the Embassy of Finland in Israel, Anu Pulkkinen, told the Post on Tuesday that Johansson “is responsible for his own comments, and we are not commenting on blog writings of individual Finnish citizens.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:02PM: Return of the Zionist Death Cows.^TM

A woman was lightly wounded and a few cars were damaged Wednesday when a cow went on a rampage at a shopping center in the northern Israeli city of Nesher.

Police said the cow, which eventually headed north towards Haifa’s Checkpost Junction, was part of a herd that was grazing near the “Big” shopping center. At some point, police said, the cows entered the area of the shopping center.

The cows were eventually cleared from the area, and their owner was questioned.

Witnesses said the cow rammed into a vehicle that tried to block its path.

Magen David Adom paramedic Kobi Ben-Haim said that during the incident, which went on for more than an hour, a woman sustained light injuries when the cow grazed her back.

So there you have it. The cow was merely getting revenge. What was the woman doing grazing the cow in the first place?

1:55PM: A look at Iran vs Israel weapon capabilities.

1:45PM: Israel’s Kadima party and opposition leader Tzipi Livni thinks to herself while listening to Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair at the ‘Delegitimization of Israel’ conference (photo credit: JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images).

What the hell is wrong with his teeth?

1:40PM: Despite saying he stands behind “Israel is a scum state” comment, Frank Johansson is more standing in front of it.

Hiding it from view while he goes to town on it with a large eraser.

The article by Weinthal appears in today’s edition of the J’Lem Post, and surprise, the offending blog post by the AI chairman at the Iltalehti website has been scrubbed, thrown down the memory hole, but thanks to Vasarahammer we have the cached picture of the post. Interestingly enough, though the Amnesty International chairman (Finnish branch) is totally unrepentant, nonetheless the post has disappeared. A passive mea culpa?

11:54AM: Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East Tony Blair,speaking as keynote speaker at the August 24 symposium entitled “The De-legitimization of Israel: Threats, Challenges and Responses.”

He needn’t look much further than his own sister-in-law.

6:10AM: Turkey has seen a 90% decline in Israeli tourism.

Meanwhile, in other bad-news-for-the-Turks, a fire has destroyed many negatives of the virulently anti-Israel Turkish TV show “Ambush in the Valley of the Wolves” spinoff movie “The Valley of the Wolves: Palestine.”

6:05AM: Hassan Nasrallah, comedian.

Nasrallah  urged the Lebanese government to draw conclusions from the current electricity crisis and follow in Iran’s footsteps and build a nuclear reactor to generate electricity like the reactor in Bushehr.

“The cost of building the Bushehr reactor was less than Lebanon’s investment in the electricity network. I call on the government to build a nuclear reactor to generate electricity, and then we can also sell energy to Syria, Cyprus, and other countries in the region,” he said.

************************************************************************************

September specials at the Okeanus Hotels in Israel.  Suites, Sea, and Style.

Rooms start at only $170. Click here for more details.

************************************************************************************

“The Secretary-General takes note of the Israeli announcement on their inquiry,” UN spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters.

“A thorough Israeli investigation is important and could fit with the secretary-general’s proposal, which would fully meet the international community’s expectation for a credible and impartial investigation,” he said.

But Haq added that Ban’s “proposal for an international inquiry remains on the table and he hopes for a positive Israeli response.” He said Israel had not rejected Ban’s idea.

Diplomats said Ban urged Israel to accept a neutral inquiry panel led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer and the cautious UN reaction may indicate that Ban had doubts about whether an Israeli-led probe would suffice.

Perhaps if we added Richard Goldstone to the panel, then the UN would be placated?

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top

11:42PM: Bill Maher on why the media takes an anti-Israeli stance.

I think he has a point.

9:20PM: Excellent piece on the lies of Canadian flotilla guerrilla, Kevin Neish (hat tip: Blazing Cat Fur).

You know things are particularly rotten in Denmark when the people over at the left-wing website rabble.ca accuse the CBC of pro-Israel bias. Surely this had to be what passes for a joke at the normally bland and satire-deprived rabble.ca . Are memories so short over there that they have forgotten Neil Macdonald?

On June 8th I wrote an article in the Full Comment section of the National Post about the strangely selective peace activism of Victoria resident Kevin Neish. In that article I expanded on how he and his knife-wielding and iron-bar swinging flotilla shipmates represent a brand of narcissistic do-gooders that are both Israel-obsessed and embarrassingly naïve about the reasons for the blockade to the Hamas-controlled Gaza by both Israel and Egypt.

Subsequent to that article, I was contacted by a sharp-eyed scanner of left-wing media sites known as “John Watson” who like his partner, Sherlock Holmes, keenly noticed a number of spurious inconsistencies in Mr. Neish’s interview with the CBC’s Carole MacNeil and another video recently released and posted by one of the “activists” on the Mavi Marmara. When queried in detail by MacNeil as to what Neish saw or did not see given his many positions described on the vessel, Neish immediately bridles at MacNeil and huffily accuses her of “taking the Israeli position.”  In his interview with Ms. MacNeil, Neish expressly says, at the 4:10 mark to be exact, that he “didn’t see any wounds” on the Israeli soldiers.  At the 7:52 mark of the interview, he says that the soldiers were released “unharmed as far as I understand”.

In a second video made by Mr. Neish’s friends on the Mavi Marmara, Mr. Neish addresses the camera below decks during the hostilities, and at the 5:57 mark says very clearly that he’s seen “two soldiers hauled down here bleeding and wounded”.  He even appears quite excited by the fact.

So, it’s unclear to me why he would tell the CBC a different story than the one he gave to a fellow camera-wielding activist? As he knew they were bleeding and wounded, why would he say that they were released unharmed? Furthermore, at the 5:30 mark of the same video, Mr. Neish is holding a laminated booklet used to identify the flotilla’s ships and various parties thereon which he or someone else removed from one of the soldiers.

My very well-trained eye recognizes this booklet to be authentic which would be carried within the soldier’s vest. I wonder if during his or one of his cohort’s rifling around the wounded soldier’s pockets, Mr. Neish decided at that point that he’d ignore the stab wounds and report to the Canadian media that he didn’t see any injured Israeli soldiers?

In their protest and pursuant dissembling, it is clear that many of these activists are either lying about events or changing their stories to portray themselves as hapless innocents and surprise, surprise, the IDF as brutal aggressors. I know this IDF unit very well. It’s known as “Shayetet 13” and akin to the U.S. Navy SEALS with whom it often trains. Neish’s claims of rampant shooting are as ridiculous as his other claims. This is a well-known tactic known in counter-terrorism circles; terrorist organizations carefully brief their training cadres to claim to have been tortured and brutalized as it plays well with western media audiences. I have no doubt that this is clearly a case of strategic lying and with the exception of Ms. MacNeil; it’s working in front of the television cameras every day.

One of the most interesting footnotes to this story is that NDP Deputy Leader, Libby Davies’ spouse, Kim Elliot, is the publisher of rabble.ca , the very same website that so stridently accuses the CBC of a “pro-Israeli bias”. Watching any species of animal devour its young is never a pretty sight but in this case it’s just bizarre. Interestingly,

Ms. Davies is one of those ahistorical souls I alluded to earlier given her belief that Israel’s occupation began in 1948, the year that the UN recognized Israel as a member state and a full 19 years before the Six Day War when Jordan, Syria, and Egypt “occupied” Palestine.

Sadly, Ms. MacNeil was clearly alone in her journalistic due-diligence in questioning Kevin Neish’s veracity. Clearly, if there are any charges of media bias to be made in this case, the CBC is the last place anyone should be pointing their finger.

8:10PM: According to the fifth annual Survey of Contemporary Israeli Attitudes Toward World Jewry conducted on behalf of the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem:

• 65% of Jewish Israelis believe US Jews should criticize the Obama administration’s policy toward Israel
• 12% said American Jews should support Obama’s current policy on Israel
• 46% believe American Jews are reluctant to criticize the Obama administration’s Israeli policy due to fear of being accused of dual loyalty.
• 36% said that type of accusation has no effect on them.
• 54% believe that Jewish advocacy groups who work with foreign governments and call themselves “pro-Israel” should always support Israeli government policy.
• 55% believe a two-state solution to the conflict is essential to the survival of Israel as a Jewish democratic state.
• 49% disagree that settlements pose a threat to Israel and “feed the delegitimization process” that Israel currently faces.

8:00PM: My favorite Hollywood actor with a brain (granted, it’s a small field).

7:45PM: A heartfelt message from a young Arab-Druze man living in Israel.

5:30PM: What do Duke, Israel and the Yankees have in common?

3:25PM: After making all sorts of unfounded accusations against Israel in this piece, terror enabler and sister-in-law of Tony Blair, Lauren Booth, is now accusing Israel of stealing up to $3.5 million worth of money, electrical equipment and other items from the Gaza flotilla passengers.

On Iran’s Press TV, of course.

1:05PM: With the EU pressuring Israel to lift the naval blockade on Gaza, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin has warned of the dangerous repercussions.

Speaking at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, Diskin said that lifting the blockade, put in place three years ago when Hamas wrestled power over the Gaza Strip in a bloody coup, would be a “dangerous development for Israel.”

“It would be a huge security breach, even if ships are inspected along the way in international ports en route to Gaza,” he warned. The port of Nicosia was mentioned during the meeting, as it was the port where the ships of the Gaza-bound aid flotilla docked last month before Israeli navy commandos clashed with activists aboard one of the ships in international waters.

Diskin added that terror organizations in Gaza are continuing to arm themselves and gain strength, both by independent production of weapons and by smuggling.

“The Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are in possession of 5,000 rockets in the Gaza Strip, with a range of up to 40 kilometers,” Diskin explained. “Of those rockets, 4,000 belong to Hamas.”

“Hamas also possesses several rockets that can reach central Israel,” Diskin went on to say.

The director of the Shin Bet also addressed Israel’s willingness to ease the general blockade on Gaza, saying that “there is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. I don’t have any problem with easing the transfer of goods from Israel. But weapons are being smuggled right now from Sinai.”

12:50PM: Excellent expose on the lies and fabrications regarding the Gaza flotilla being thrown around in the media.

10:00AM: Israel has denounced comments made yesterday by former Cuban president Fidel Castro, who compared Israel’s treatment of palestinians to the Nazi extermination of Jews.

“The hatred felt by the state of Israel against the Palestinians is such that they would not hesitate to send the one and a half million men, women and children of that country to the crematoria where millions of Jews of all ages were exterminated by the Nazis,” the ex-Cuban leader said.

“It would seem that the Fuehrer’s [Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's] swastika is today Israel’s banner,” the 83-year-old Castro declared in the latest of a series of articles dubbed “reflections” in the communist-ruled island’s media.

In other news, Fidel Castro is still alive.

6:18AM: Middle East Quarter envoy Tony Blair said he believed Israel will ease its blockade of Gaza “in the next days” by allowing in commercial goods and construction materials.

6:15AM: The Israeli navy is bracing itself for flotillas from Iran and Lebanon.

6:10AM: University of California, Irvine, has suspended the Muslim Student Union (MSU) for one year and placed it on disciplinary probation for an additional year for disorderly conduct, obstructing university activities, furnishing false information and other violations of campus policy arising from their heckling of Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren.

MSU attorney Reem Salahi had this to say about the decision:

“It really does have very lasting constitutional implications…It’s a chilling effect for Muslims on campus and their right to associate.”

Funny, because I would reserve the word chilling for something like this:

******************************************************************************************

Want to learn how to shoot with top Israeli anti-terror experts? Click here for more details.

******************************************************************************************

At the same time, the government awaits a green light from the United States and other sources on a separate proposal for how to investigate the incident. The proposal is to establish a panel of top jurists with experience in international and marine law, including two international jurists, to probe the raid independently of the IDF probe.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:00PM: Now that’s more like it, Tony!

Israel has the right to protect itself, former British prime minister Tony Blair said in an interview with Channel 10 on Tuesday.

Blair met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday to discuss the repercussions of last week’s flotilla raid.

“Any investigation has to be full and impartial, and there may be some sort of international element that could be part of it,” Blair said.

While Blair stressed the need to launch an international, impartial probe into the incident, he assured that he wholeheartedly supports Israel’s right to self-defense.

“There are no questions at all. There have been rockets fired from Gaza, there are people in Gaza who want to kill innocent Israelis,” the former UK premier said said.

“When it comes to security, I am one hundred percent on Israel’s side.”

Which is sure to piss off his sister-in-law.

8:50PM: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon admitted that last week’s flotilla raid was a failure, saying that “in a place where citations should have been given, someone failed to prepare a standard operating procedure.”

Speaking during a meeting with council heads from the Likud party, Ya’alon said that “the decision was right, but there is room for improvement –and I am not going to elaborate.”

Ya’alon, who served as acting prime minister at the time of the operation due to the fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on an official visit to Canada, praised the commandos who took over the Gaza-bound flotilla. “The fighting on the deck was heroic and took place under impossible conditions,” he said, while adding that “there were some malfunctions during the planning and operational stages.”

“I warned of this before the incident,” the minister said

8:42PM: Do you remember Tali Fahima, the Israeli moonbat with a thing for palestinian terrorists with big guns?

Well, you won’t guess what she’s gone ahead and done.

Photo courtesy of pls48.net

Israeli left-wing activist Tali Fahima, previously convicted of aiding Palestinian terrorists, told Ynet that she had converted to Islam on Monday at a mosque in Umm al-Fahm in the presence of three sheikhs.

Sheikh Yusuf Albaz confirmed that Fahima converted. Fahima herself refused to comment, saying that she doesn’t give interviews to the “Zionist media.”

Fahima plead guilty in December 2005 to maintaining contacts with a foreign agent with the intention of harming state security, and was sentenced to three years in prison.

She was specifically convicted of aiding Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades terrorists, including the group’s leader in Jenin Zakariya Zubeidi, whom she had an affair with, and was released from prison in January 2007.

The Shin Bet security service claimed that Fahima, who resides in Wadi Ara, planned on becoming the first Jewish terrorist to act against her own people.

Sheikh Albaz, a senior member of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, accompanied Fahima throughout the conversion process. “I liked her mentality; I like anyone who prefers resistance to capitulation, and Tali Fahima is an example of resistance,” he said.

The issue of Islam was discussed during the meetings between the sheikh and Fahima. “I wanted to encourage her and I told her that she must continue along her current path. I also spoke to her about the ways of Islam and explained that the religion stands for resistance in the face of all that is evil in the world,” the sheikh recounted.

Fahima eventually informed the sheikh that he had convinced her, and told her associates that the head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Shiekh Raed Salah, was her model.

“Salah accepted her with open arms,” said Sheikh Albaz. “From this point on she is a full-fledged Muslim – there is no need for a special ceremony.”

Fahima visited Salah in Umm al-Fahm over the weekend. The sheikh was placed under house arrest for participating in the Gaza-bound flotilla.

The Islamic Movement praised Fahima’s decision to convert and was quick to publish the development on its website.

Her family must be so proud.

11:25AM: According to a new Rasmussen report, 49% of US voters believe the flotillarists raided by Israeli forces are to blame for the resulting deaths, 19% think Israel is to blame, and 32% are not sure (via Memeorandum).

11:06AM: It’s not every day that a country warns the Russians.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday warned Russia not to side with his country’s foes in a UN sanctions vote on the Iranian nuclear program later this week.

“[The Russians] must be careful not to be beside the enemies of the Iranian people,” Ahmadinejad said at a press conference in Istanbul, where was attending a summit alongside regional leaders including Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, the midgetized monkey has once again alluded to Israel’s destruction.

“Attacking the aid convoy was a big crime which brought the Zionist regime one step closer to its death,” Ahmadinejad said.

7:26AM: Separated at Birth?

6:18AM: Reuters has responded to accusations they deliberately cropped from photos flotilla “activists” holding weapons and bloodied IDF commandos.

Reuters on Monday rejected accusations of biased coverage, adding that it had reverted to the use of “the original set” of images, once the organization realized that the photographs it had published had been cropped.

A Reuters spokesman told Haaretz: “Reuters is committed to an accurate and impartial reporting. All images that pass over our wire follow a strict editorial evaluation and selection process.

“The images in question were made available in Istanbul in following normal editorial practice were prepared for dissemination which included cropping at the edges. When we realized that the dagger was inadvertently cropped from the images Reuters immediately moved to the original set as well.”

Wow, what a coincidence. Twice.

6:00AM: From the Land Down Under: Bipartisan support for Israel’s actions in intercepting the flotilla expressed by Australian Federal politicians.

5:56AM: Israel is not the only party concerned with Turkey’s stance in the wake of the guerilla flotilla raid.

The Palestinian Authority is concerned about Turkey’s increased support for Hamas, a PA official in Ramallah said on Monday.

The official said that the PA leadership was “unhappy” with Turkey’s policy toward Hamas, especially with regard to pressure to lift the blockade on the Gaza Strip unconditionally.

“Turkey’s policy is emboldening Hamas and undermining the Palestinian Authority,” the official told The Jerusalem Post.

“Of course we want to see the blockade lifted, but Hamas must also end its coup in the Gaza Strip and accept an Egyptian proposal for achieving reconciliation with Fatah.”

The PA is also concerned the reopening of the Rafah border crossing to Sinai would enable Hamas to tighten its grip on the Strip.

“We wish to remind the Turkish and Egyptian governments that the border crossing was controlled by the Palestinian Authority before Hamas launched its coup in 2007,” the official added. “If the Rafah border crossing is going to be reopened, that should be done in coordination with us and not with Hamas.”

Azzam al-Ahmed, a top Fatah official in the West Bank, was quoted over the weekend as saying that he was opposed to the lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip until Hamas agreed to end the dispute with his faction.

Ahmed stressed that there was no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip because the PA government was sending aid through Israeli border crossings.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who visited Istanbul on Monday, was said to have relayed to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan his concern over the rapprochement between Turkey and Hamas, the official revealed.

Erdogan, according to the official, offered to mediate between the PA and Hamas -an offer that Abbas accepted.

Erdogan declared that ending the power struggle between the rival Palestinian parties “is a must.” He claimed that Hamas had also welcomed a mediation role for Turkey.

Did you note in particular the sentence I highlighted in red?

******************************************************************************************

Want to learn how to shoot with top Israeli anti-terror experts? Click here for more details.

******************************************************************************************

Getty Images

“Twice we have paid a heavy price in order to release the blockade on Jerusalem. The first time in the War of Independence and the second time when the city was bombed during the Six Day War.”

“Forty-three years ago Jerusalem was a divided city with a wall at its heart. Today, along that same route the tracks are placed for the light rail, which will connect the thriving neighborhoods that have been built over dozens of years.”

“Jerusalem, once a divided city, has become a city of life, productivity and rejuvenation.

“Not a day has gone by in which we have not extended our hand in peace to our neighbors. That hand is still reaching out to those who want peace. Over the years we have learned that olive branches of peace will be obtained only if we remain strong and prepared to defend our country.”

“The fighters of Ammunition Hill, as well as the other fighters, gave up their lives for the State of Israel. They believed in the righteousness of protecting the Jewish nation’s only state.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:44PM: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s interview with “Good Morning America” anchor George Stephanopoulos.

The full interview transcript is here.

5:32PM: Jimmy Carter and fellow anti-Israel clowns – take note! (hat tip: Daled Amos)

Dr. Mohammed Wattad, an Arab Israeli  Muslim who is a senior  lecturer at Zefat College’s School of Law  and editor of the International Journal on Medicine and Law  told an audience here  that Israel is not an apartheid state.

The very articulate Dr. Wattad spoke at the University of Manitoba during Israel Apartheid Week [IAW], but  virtually none of the  IAW organizers and supporters came to hear his lecture.

Dr. Wattad said that “As an Israeli citizen, I belong to a political entity…I have no other home than the State of Israel. I am a proud Israeli citizen but that doesn’t mean I can’t criticize it…At the same time I am a proud Arab national. I like Arab culture, people, etc… Whenever something wrong happens to the Arab world, I feel it. These are not contradictory things.”

He added, “Don’t tell me Israel can’t define itself as Jewish and democratic… This doesn’t mean that Israel is innocent in all of this [conflict], but there are others here that also aren’t innocent.”

Dr. Wattad, who was sponsored by the Jewish Students Association/Hillel  pointed out that “Israeli Arabs, for example in the Galilee, decided upon the State of Israel’s birth to stay and take citizenship, to be an Israeli citizen or not…That was their choice…”

In 2007, Dr. Wattad, was the recipient in Italy of the an award for  the ‘‘Best Oralist for Legal Arguments” given by  the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Science.  At the University of Manitoba he spoke about the difference between discrimination and apartheid.

“Is there discrimination in Israel? Yes-there is discrimination against women, elderly, Arabs, Russian Jews, Christians,…But the same goes for Canada. Is it good-No?  But it means we have to deal with the problem from within…. The existence of discrimination in a state does not mean it is an apartheid state…There is a big difference between apartheid and discrimination,” he said.

“In an apartheid regime, there is no possibility of judicial review, because the judges are appointed by the regime and all serve one ideology. This is not the case in Israel…There is a very strong, independent Supreme Court in Israel.  In an apartheid regime [unlike in Israel] there is no place to go to argue against the government,”  Dr.  Wattad added.

He further noted for example that in the case of   Israel’s security “fence”, there were “‘more than 163 judgments of the Supreme Court where they decided that the fence  had to be re-routed/rebuilt.” He also said that Egypt also has a fence between it and Gaza.

4:04PM: Here’s what it looked like at Machane Yehuda, Jerusalem’s central market, when the Memorial Day siren sounded at 11:00AM this morning.

3:16PM: Tourists stranded in Israel due to the volcanic ash have been given the opportunity to witness Memorial Day in Israel.

2:44PM: Breaks my heart.

The mother of Israel Defense Forces Major Eliraz Peretz, who was killed last month in the Gaza Strip, on Monday marked her first memorial day since his death and the twelfth since her eldest son Uriel was killed in Lebanon in 1998.

“The dilemma I now face is inhuman: Beside which grave do I stand on Mount Herzl,” Miriam Peretz said in interview with Army Radio, referring to the annual memorial ceremony at the military cemetery.

“I am indeed not an angel. I can feel pain only in one place, to be comforted only in one place,” she said. “Eliraz always came to be with me on Memorial Day, except when he was in military action.”

“It was always me, my husband and Eliraz, there to salute Uriel,” added Peretz, whose husband died of an illness several years ago. “This year, I am without Eliezer and without Uriel.”

12:05PM: Sweet.

Some 20,000 flowers donated by American Christians and Jews who were upset by the reportedly poor treatment that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu received in the White House last month will be distributed on Remembrance Day.

Jerusalem florist Richard Kovler allocated the flowers on Sunday to army units, Border Police and organizations helping victims of terror, for memorial ceremonies that will be held Monday across the country.

“It’s a nice gesture of friendship at a time of bereavement to let Israelis know that Americans care about them,” Kovler said.

More than 2,100 dozen roses, totaling more than 25,000 flowers, were donated in a campaign led by US radio host Janet Porter’s Faith2action organization. About 6,000 flowers were distributed to Jerusalem hospitals on April 11, and one bouquet of 100 flowers was symbolically given to Netanyahu.

In a thank-you letter to Porter, Netanyahu said he had no doubt that the flowers had touched the hearts of those who received them and that her unwavering support for Israel was deeply appreciated

11:55AM: Former British PM Tony Blair is reportedly stranded in Jerusalem due to the volcanic ash cloud over Europe.

I wonder if he’ll spend the time he’s stranded the same way his sister-in-law did – eating.

11:40AM: With Israel’s iPad ban being ridiculed by many, perhaps this explains it:

The reason the Communications Ministry is blocking the entry of iPad tablet computers into Israel is that the device’s wireless communications could interfere with frequencies used by the military, said MK Robert Ilatov (Yisrael Beiteinu) yesterday.

Nevertheless, if that is reason, Ilatov does not seem to be concerned by it:

He wrote a letter to Communications Minister the Moshe Kahlon, calling on him to allow the importation of Apple’s new computers, which the ministry banned last week. Ilatov said the ban had harmed Israel’s image around the world, and kept Israelis from using cutting-edge technology.

9:06AM: Ahead of Israel’s Independence Day starting tonight, Hillary Clinton speaks of her “deep personal commitment” to Israel the teleprompter.

******************************************************************************************

Want to learn how to shoot with top Israeli anti-terror experts? Click here for more details.

******************************************************************************************

The Arab League and Hamas both said that Arabs should not normalize ties with Israel as long as we don’t implement a ” settlement freeze.”

“It is impossible to speak of normalization when Israel rejects any significant measure,” Arab League chief Amr Moussa said at a joint news conference in Cairo with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

“Israel persists in its intransigent position and rejects every significant measure” concerning a freeze in settlement constructions, he said.

In case you hadn’t noticed, this is the first time the Arabs have spoken about a “settlement freeze,” and it certainly wasn’t included in any of the no’s of the the Khartoum Resolution. I also didn’t quite catch it in the Hamas charter.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

9:50PM: Biased caption of the day:

Israelis soldiers stand in formation in front of a torch during a ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of the 1929 riots in the West bank city of Hebron, Monday, Sept. 7, 2009. Jews lived and worshipped in Hebron for centuries but fled in 1929 after the city’s Arabs, angered by the increased Zionist presence in British-controlled Palestine, killed 67 Jews. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

Well done AP, on trying to explain away the massacre of 67 Jews at the hands of Arab mobs, by portraying the Jews as occupiers. Reading this caption, it seems one is supposed to almost feel the Arab frustration.

If you want to know what really happened that fateful day 80 years ago, see here and here.

9:10PM: NGO Monitor has released “the first systematic study” on Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) activities in the Middle East over the past several years.

Publication coincides with the anticipated publication of the Goldstone committee’s Gaza report, and UN Human Rights Commissioner Pillay’s threat of  International Criminal Court (ICC) action. The Goldstone process closely echoes HRW’s agenda and faulty methodology, which are examined in NGO Monitor’s report.

NGO Monitor’s report of HRW’s Middle East activities from 2001 to 2009, with over 80 pages of case studies and analyses of HRW’s publications related to Israel, includes:

• Profiles of HRW’s Middle East division staff, led by ideologues with a history of pro-Palestinian activism, rather than human rights experts.  The division is headed by Sarah Leah Whitson (who actively supported the “Caterpillar” Israel boycott campaign, and led the HRW fundraising trip to Saudi Arabia). Similarly, deputy director Joe Stork, spent 20 years as a founder and editor of the radical anti-Zionist Middle East Report (MERIP), including participation in a “Zionism and Racism” conference in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, before joining HRW. Other in-depth profiles analyze the professional qualifications and biases of Executive Director Kenneth Roth, Reed Brody, Darryl Li, Nadia Barhoum and Lucy Mair.
• Methodological failures: HRW’s publications related to Israel, including the 2002 Jenin reports, the 2006 Lebanon war, and the flood of publications on Gaza, rely largely on claims from unreliable eyewitnesses, and local NGOs with limited or no credibility.  These reports consistently confuse speculation with fact, distort international law and omit evidence that does not support the predetermined conclusions. (In many cases, HRW ignored videos showing Hamas and Hezbollah use of human shields.) These practices systematically violate the NGO fact-finding guidelines of the International Bar Association.
• Comparative data showing the disproportionate emphasis on Israel:  This highlights HRW bias, and also diverts resources that should be focused on the oppressive regimes and absence of basic freedoms in other Middle East countries. Analysis of 2008 publications using a weighted quantitative methodology again shows HRW focused more attention on Israel than on Iran, Syria, Egypt, Jordan and others.
• HRW reports on Israel are focused on very narrow and artificial issues that strip the context of the conflict, and indict Israel from the beginning. This is demonstrated in HRW post-Gaza reports on white phosphorous, drones, and white flags, all based on unsupported Palestinian claims and speculation, while using terms like “war crimes” repeatedly.

These major flaws in HRW’s focus on Israel are also reflected in the activities of the Goldstone fact-finding mission on Gaza. Although Goldstone resigned as a Human Rights Watch board member after NGO Monitor noted a conflict of interest, his statements have strongly echoed and defended HRW’s bias, particularly in relation to the 2006 Lebanon War and over Gaza.

In parallel, HRW officials such as Kenneth Roth, have staunchly supported Goldstone, attacked the investigation’s critics, called for broad support of the investigation and reproached President Obama for neglecting to mention the commission in his Cairo address.

NGO Monitor’s President Prof Gerald Steinberg said “As shown by NGO Monitor’s unique in-depth analysis, HRW repeatedly applies unprofessional methodology in support of an anti-Israel bias.  Human rights values and research standards have been replaced by ideology. The evidence shows that the Middle East division of this powerful organization needs a full and systemic overhaul, to recover its moral foundation and relevance in promoting human rights, particularly in repressive regimes.

Furthermore, the UN human rights structure and the NGO community work in close coordination, and are mutually reinforcing.  Goldstone’s strong identification with Human Rights Watch forms the political foundation for his biased inquiry, while Pillay’s statement pushes the process further towards implementing HRW’s agenda”.

The study is available here.

Meanwhile, one-time Israellycool contributor Elder of Ziyon analyzes the pattern of bias in HRW’s “Precisely Wrong” report.

8:12PM: Palestine Today reports (auto-translated):

Gaza: Palestinian doctor out a pencil from the top baby rare, marathon surgery

Enable the surgeon nerves in the Shifa Hospital in Gaza, a doctor determined Kahil and his team of its doctors, anesthesia technicians, and nurses from a rare surgery in the infant Bakr Ghazal year-old son.

The baby deer was severely injured due to head into a pencil in the head, resulting in a deterioration in the degree of awareness and expand in the right eye pupil admitted to the intensive care unit and underwent the process successful.

This is disturbing all round: the idea of having a pencil lodged in your head, the quality of the auto-translation, and the picture accompanying the report:

That’s some one-year old.

7:20PM: Roseanne Barr continues to demonstrate the unfunny side of mental illness:

Did someone neglect to tell Madonna

that Netanyahu is a fascist and a war criminal, and that lighting shabbat candles with him would turn the stomachs of all jews who are interested in peace in israel and palestine??!!!!

Did someone neglect to tell Barr that she doesn’t know the first thing about what turns people stomachs, because if she did she wouldn’t be subjecting people to her offensiveness?

5:08PM: Separated at Birth? IAEA (potato) head Mohamed ElBaradei = fail

3:50PM: Quote of the day:

“Netanyahu’s policies are the policies of a small-time politician…The decision isn’t on the question of [settlement] construction. The decision is whether or not there will be two states here for two peoples, things that Kadima has already declared its support for..It’s not just that he doesn’t make fateful decisions, he doesn’t want to make them. He makes do with speeches and photo-ops.”

Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, who clearly hates photo-ops.

12:06PM: Jane Fonda responds to claims she supports the destruction of Israel.

So– I wake up this morning to a barrage of emails giving me a link to a web posting that has been widely picked up. It says that Rabbi Hier at the Simon Wiesenthal Center (he and I were friends—I thought) claims I support the destruction of Israel because I signed (along with many other artists, historians, including eight Israelis, mostly filmmakers) a petition protesting the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to feature a celebratory “spotlight” on Tel Aviv. We understand that by doing this the festival has become, whether knowingly or not,  a participant in a cynical PR campaign to improve Israel’s image, make her appear less war-like. The Israeli Consul General said a year ago that Toronto would be the launch site of an extensive “Brand Israel” campaign. Artists and others of us who love Israel do not want art to be used to whitewash the tragedies committed against Palestinians, most recently in last winter’s terrible war in Gaza (1400 Palestinians dead, mostly civilians, many more wounded, and there are documented human rights violations) and the ongoing blockade of Gaza that is deepening a serious humanitarian crisis, wreaking havoc on the lives of innocent people, and preventing reconstruction in the aftermath of the attack.
The letter we signed did not —repeat: DID NOT–call for a boycott of any part of the Toronto Film Festival. In fact, many of the people who signed the letter are showing films there and many of the Israeli filmmakers that go to the festival show films critical of Israel. We protest the use of Tel Aviv to rebrand Israel. We are standing up for integrity of art, not censoring anyone. The letter certainly did not call for the destruction of Israel or call into question the legitimacy of Tel Aviv as a city. But In the year when Gaza happened there shouldn’t be a celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv.

I have been to Israel many times. The first was in the early 1980s and it was love at first sight…for the country and for its people. I stayed in a Kibbutz with the great Israeli novelist, Amos Oz, and his family. I raised money for a senior center in Haifa, for a girl’s shelter in Jerusalem. I have spoken at the Hebrew University. I traveled into Lebanon with the Israeli army in 1981. I went deep into Russia in the  80s to secretly meet with Soviet Refusenik, Ida Nudel, after which I a national speaking tour in the U. S. to build support for letting Ida go to Israel where she now lives. In other words, I have been intimately involved with Israel over 3 decades. On almost every visit I also went into the West Bank, met with Palestinian artists, visited Palestinian refugee camps, drove through the Israeli settlements that encroach increasingly into Palestinian territory. I have seen suffering on both sides. It is out of love for Israel and all that it promised to be that I protest the use of art (which is meant to search for truth) in this branding campaign. The greatest “re-branding” of Israel would be to celebrate that country’s robust peace movement by allowing aid to be delivered to Gaza and stopping expansion of the settlements. That’s the way to show Israel’s commitment to peace, not a PR campaign. There will be no two-state solution unless this happens.

My response to Ms Fonda.

1. If Israel appears “war-like”, it is because she has constantly been defending herself since her inception in 1948. You are old enough to remember what happened in 1967, including the Arab statements threatening Israel with annihilation. But in case you were too busy protesting the Vietnam War at the time, I suggest you pick up any reputable history book and read for yourself. You may also learn that the Arabs attacked Israel on the eve of her independence, after having rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which would have seen the two-state solution you claim to support.
2. You stated as fact that 1400 Palestinians were killed in Operation Cast Lead, and these were “mostly civilians.” Where did you get this information? According to an IDF investigation, 1,166 palestinians were killed, with 709 belonging to terrorist organizations. And even if you are not willing to accept these figures, do you not accept the fact that Hamas terrorists were deliberately operating out of civilian areas?
3. You mention visiting palestinian refugee camps. Have you even questioned why these camps still exist? Why is it that Israel has absorbed Jewish people from all around the world,  yet the Arab world does not take in the palestinians for which they claim to care so much?
4. If “expansion of the settlements” is really the big issue, why did the Arab states attack Israel prior to the 1967 war, in which Israel captured these lands? Why was the PLO formed in 1964, three years earlier? Have you ever read the Hamas charter? The issue is, and has always been, the Arab refusal to accept Israel’s very existence.
5. Why is it that you question Israel’s commitment to peace, and not the palestinians, despite the fact the latter have met Israeli peace overtures with terrorism? Why do you question Israel’s commitment to peace and not the palestinians after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was met by palestinian rocket fire into Israeli population centers?

10:06AM: Over 73 aid trucks and 440,000 liters of fuel and gas are scheduled to cross into Gaza today.

We still haven’t quite mastered that whole genocide thing.

6:08AM: The leader of Gaza’s al Qaeda-inspired palestinian terrorist group Jaljalat revealed his men recently tried to assassinate former Jimmy Carter and Tony Blair.