“The threat that Iran poses is very grave for the state of Israel, for peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Without any doubt, we are the first target, but not the last.”

- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:12PM: Opposition leader Tzipi Livni today blasted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but not before experiencing “technical difficulties.”

Here’s hoping she had better luck with the coffee machine.

8:32PM: Hamas is using a photo of yesterday’s “Netanyahu slip” to ridicule the Israeli Prime Minister.

Two can play this game, you know.

7:35PM: Sarah Palin criticizing the Obama administration and expressing her support for Jewish settlements.

8:38AM: The moving story of an Indian doctor and his wife, who converted to Judaism thanks in large part to murdered Mumbai Chabad Rabbi Gabi Holtzberg HY”D and his wife Rebecca Holtzberg HY”D, and who married in Hebron on the first anniversary of their murders.

‘Our whole life centered around the Chabad House, “he said in a trembling voice.” It’s the only place where we could get kosher food. Gabi and Rivki were our guides, we did not move without them. They gave us Judaism and we gave them medical care for their sick child. We began a process of true conversion and found the extraordinary beauty of the Torah commandments. Then came that terrible night, and took away my Master …”. He sobs a few moments and says: “But what we learned from Gabi and Rivki will accompany us and our children forever.”

Read the whole thing.

8:27AM: So much for quitting.

8:26AM: Palestinian terrorists have fired a Qassam into Israel.

5:52AM: Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on the backside.

And even then, he’d accuse it of Israeli aggression.

In his latest episode of lying, he now claims the PA are not seeking a unilateral declaration of statehood.

“I want to make sure the Israeli people understand that we are not speaking of a unilateral declaration,” Erekat said. “This is not an option.”

He blamed Israeli leaders for reports that the PA was seeking a unilateral declaration of statehood, saying they were “always trying to twist our words.”

Compare that to some of his other statements.

This is the right time” to seek Security Council recognition of a Palestinian state, Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said in response to comments made by EU officials calling the move “premature.”

—-

Erekat responded almost immediately through an interview with Agence France Presse (AFP) from Cairo, saying “it is time to recognize a Palestinian state on the borders of 4 June 1967 with Jerusalem as its capital.” Arguing the case, Erekat argued that the EU recognized the State of Kosovo before other official channels supported its claim for independence.

Sweden is not alone in determining EU policy, Erekat then quipped, noting other EU countries support the Palestinian decision and adding that as of yet, the EU does not have a common foreign policy.

On Sunday, Erekat announced that members of the Palestinian Authority would seek recognition as a state from the UN Security Council.

Meanwhile, PA President Mahmoud Abbas has made the “it’s not unilateral because we have Arab state backing” argument.

Abbas said the move was not unilateral and enjoyed the backing of Arab countries.

“The decision emanates from an Arab follow-up committee (of the Arab League) that was convened recently … and which agreed to go the Security Council for it to say that it supports an independent Palestinian state,” he said.

12:15AM: A former Islamic terrorist tells his story, and in the process dispels a few myths about the root causes of Islamic terrorism.

He’s also got a message for Israel.

12:10AM: French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner tries to outdo Binyamin Netanyahu.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, left, slips during a press conference with Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, right, in Amman, Jordan, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009. Kouchner is in Amman on his two-day visit to the region as part of France’s efforts to revive the peace negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Kouchner will also visit Israel.

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.

Outgoing IAEA (potato) head Mohamed ElBaradei called the Iranian threat “hyped,” saying there is no proof the Islamic republic will soon have nuclear weapons.

“In many ways, I think the threat has been hyped,” ElBaradei told the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in an interview released Tuesday.

“Yes, there’s concern about Iran’s future intentions and Iran needs to be more transparent with the IAEA and international community,” he told the Chicago-based magazine. “But the idea that we’ll wake up tomorrow and Iran will have a nuclear weapon is an idea that isn’t supported by the facts as we have seen them so far.”

“About Iran, I’ve been told, ‘Mind your own business; you’re a technician.’ And yet, at other times, on other matters, I have been told that I’m the custodian of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – sometimes by the very people who tell me to mind my own business when it comes to Iran,” he continued.

“I don’t put much stock in either designation.

I have another designation for him, but since I try to keep this a relatively family friendly site, I won’t mention it here.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:08PM: More on today’s meeting between Israeli Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Regional Cooperation Silvan Shalom and PA Economics Minister Bassim Khoury (bonus: Seth Green lookalike news anchor).

10:22PM: The Jerusalem Post displaying more of the patented brilliance that sees them head the list of popular Jewish news sites in the US.

In other words, we don’t actually have a photo of an Iranian nuclear site, so here’s a photo of some other site instead. But we’ll still refer to it as an Iranian nuclear site.

8:24PM: Sky News reports that palestinians are not happy that Madonna said all those nice things about Israel and draped herself with the Israeli flag at the end of her concert last night (see video). Like, d’uh.

8:12PM: From the Department of Apparently Superfluous Adjectives:

‘Shi’ite Bernard Madoff’ held in custody in Lebanon

Actually, it’s not referring to the..err..real deal (if I can call him that).

6:28PM: Here’s footage taken of Madonna saying those nice things about Israel at last night’s concert.

6:18PM: Israeli Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Regional Cooperation Silvan Shalom and PA Economics Minister Bassim Khoury have met to discuss how to improve the lives of palestinians.

This is all well and good, but I would also like to hear of Israel and PA officials meeting to discuss how to improve the lives of Israelis, like those in Sderot and other communities in the firing line.

1:58PM: The Jerusalem Post is reportedly the most popular Jewish news website in the US.

A recent study – not commissioned by The Jerusalem Post – has revealed that of all Jewish news Web sites, Jpost.com is the clear leader in the United States, garnering more than twice as many readers as its closest competitor, and almost twice as many readers as all American Jewish news Web sites combined.

Although the Post was unaware of the study until after it was published, the newspaper welcomed the data as a sign that it was maintaining a critical lead in the cutthroat world of Internet news.

In mid-August, 4Wall, which operates the JInsider site, conducted what it called “the Jewish Internet Metric Study,” borrowing from the practices of McKinsey & Company to analyze Internet use and its business implications and applications.

The study found that Jpost.com hosted 1,454,649 unique visitors per month, while competitor Haaretz.com lagged far behind, with 691,467.

All of the American Jewish news sources combined – including the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Jewish Journal, New York’s The Jewish Week, the Forward, Philadelphia’s The Jewish Exponent and The Jewish Press – received barely half of Jpost.com’s traffic figures, with 808,516 unique visitors.

Not only did Jpost.com leave other sites far behind, but the study also found visitors spent “significantly more time per visit” on the two Israel-based sites, and that “many more of those visitors are ‘regulars’ [people who visit more than once per month] and addicts [people who visit more than 30 times per month.]”

“I think that our success can be attributed to a combination of great original content, a never-ending pace of news flow, the power of the brand name and the fact that every day at 3:30 p.m. Jerusalem time, as far as we’re concerned, we enter US time,” explained Jpost.com Managing Editor Shani Rosenfelder. “We look at our North American audience in terms of what stories should be highlighted and what issues take center stage in those readers’ eyes.”

Color me surprised. Of the three main English news sites in Israel, I consider the Post to be the worst. It frequently borrows from other sites, and is often slow on stories. And regular Israellycool readers would already be aware of their buggy picture caption generator thing-a-me-bob, which provides constant grist for my mill.

Aussie Dave’s guilty confession: I prefer the Ha’aretz site. Sure, the op-eds annoy the daylights out of me, but the site is way more up-to-date than the others, and I find the site layout to be easier to follow.

I’m hoping Israellycool is on the list next year. Help me get there by telling your family and friends about it, and sending them posts of mine that you like.

10:50AM: The EU’s rapporteur on piracy (apparently a real job title), Admiral Tarmo Kouts (apparently his real name), has told TIME that Israel was likely behind the July hijacking of a Russian-manned ship en route to Algeria.

“There is the idea that there were missiles aboard, and one can’t explain this situation in any other way,” he told the magazine, becoming the highest-ranking official to date to support the theory. “As a sailor with years of experience, I can tell you that the official versions are not realistic.”

Meanwhile, it looks like everyone is a comedian, whether it be the Jerusalem Post..

Until today, no government official of any kind has gone on the record to accuse Israel as being behind the hijacking, but many have admitted that the story – or at least the official version – does not appear to hold water

..or former Israeli deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneh:

“There is something fishy about this whole story, no doubt about it,” former Israeli deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneh told The Media Line. “But I can’t comment further on this.”

6:04AM: Pop star and FoTz (Friend of Tzipi) Madonna played in front of 50,000 fans last night, showing her love for Israel in the procees.

“I shouldn’t have stayed so long away,” she told the adoring crowd midway through the show, as she broke away from the script to express her affection for the country.

“Every time I come here, I get so supercharged with energy,” she said. “I truly believe that Israel is the energy center of the world. And I also believe that if we can all live together in harmony in this place, then we can live in peace all over the world.”

Meanwhile, judging by the pictures, I would say she also showed a whole lot more. Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu was not available for comment.

5:54AM: Guess who’s coming to dinner? Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren yesterday attended a White House Ramadan dinner.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister denied a Haaretz report that he and the Italian Foreign Minister would work to pass a resolution saying that the EU, under the Swedish Presidency, strongly condemned anti-Semitism and would work against its manifestations in Europe.

Wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

9:46PM: Regarding the last update, it seems as though the article was even more biased than I suggested.

Reuters relied on palestinians, who lied about the incident.

Two Hamas gunmen were killed in what appears to be a malfunction of an explosive device they were attempting to place near an area of Gaza’s border fence regularly patrolled by soldiers, Palestinian sources reported Tuesday.

Preliminary reports said the two were killed an Air Force strike, but the reports turned out to be false.

Meanwhile, Reuters has not updated its report with this latest information.

8:50PM: The IAF has reportedly vaporized two Hamasholes, according to Hamas and palestinian medical officials.

Reuters is there with the story. Or at least their biased take on it.

Israel had no immediate comment on the incident, which would constitute a breach of an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire that ended its December-January war with in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

There have been sporadic Palestinian short-range rocket attacks on the Jewish state since, often carried out by non-Hamas factions. Israel has generally responded with air strikes against infrastructure, causing few casualties.

Hamas shuns Israel but has signaled interest in a long-term truce.

Which brings me to the following questions:

• The palestinians have been firing rockets and mortar shells into Israel way after Operation Cast lead, including during the past few weeks, yet this incident would constitute a breach of the so-called ceasefire?
• Hamas is only shunning (i.e. avoiding or staying away from) Israel? They won’t recognize us.

I should point out that the reporter is someone by the name of Nidal al-Mughrabi. Just saying.

6:45PM: An excellent video on the Swedish blood libel.

6:42PM: Commissioner-general of UNRWA, Karen Abu Zayd, has responded to claims that the UN school curriculum includes the Holocaust by proudly confirming it since it would provide palestinians with some more understanding and empathy towards Jews and increase the chance of coexistence adamantly denying this is the case.

During a news conference at the Gaza harbor Abu Zayd said, “I can refute allegations that UN school curriculum includes anything about the Holocaust. Anyone can have a look at the school books. Really we focus on human rights in curriculum.”

Because what the heck does the Holocaust have to do with human rights?

6:27PM: We haven’t seen Hairstyle Man in quite a while. Does this picture provide a reason for this, or do my eyes deceive me?

A Palestinian woman shows small portraits of relatives jailed in Israel while demonstrating with others outside in the West Bank side of the Israeli controlled Ofer jail on August 31, 2009 in the West Bank village of Betunia, near Ramallah. Some 11,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails.

6:18PM: An Iranian newspaper has jumped on the chance to help spread the organ harvesting blood libel begun by Swedish journalist Donald Boström.

“New details exposed on trafficking of Palestinian organs,” read Tuesday’s headline of Iranian newspaper Kayhan, which is considered Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s mouthpiece.

The newspaper, which appears to be attempting to inflame Iranian public opinion in the wake of the controversy surrounding the Swedish article accusing IDF soldiers of harvesting organs from Palestinians, quotes Arab reporter Kusar Aslam as saying that, “Since the early 1970s the Israelis have snatched thousands of Palestinian bodies from hospitals in the territories and transferred them to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute.”

Aslam, who claims she was stationed in Gaza and the West Bank for 22 years said, “My personal experience verifies the report published by (Donald) Boström,” referring to the Aftonbladet reporter who published the original article.

According to Aslam, some of the Palestinians were still alive when they were “kidnapped” by IDF soldiers.

“I personally witnessed Israeli soldiers and army vehicles snatching Palestinian bodies from emergency rooms,” the Iranian reporter said. “In other instances I saw soldiers follow Palestinians to cemeteries with the intent of stealing bodies before they were buried.

“This became so widespread that many people began to bury those murdered by IDF forces near their homes – in the yard or under a tree,” she said.

Which begs the question: if this is true, why didn’t Aslam break the story all those years ago, instead preferring to wait until some Swedish tabloid journalist did so? After all, she claims to have witnessed way more than Bostrom.

I think we all know the answer.

4:30PM: Contrived photo of the day…

An elderly Palestinian woman reacts shortly before the arrival of the body of Mohammed Nayef, 14, at the family house during his funeral in the West Bank refugee camp of Jalazoun, near Ramallah, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2009. Palestinian police on Tuesday said he was shot while throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. The Israeli military said the boy was one of three Palestinians who on Monday night hurled Molotov cocktails at a guard post near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

..unless you believe the photographer, Muhammed Muheisen, just happened to catch this grieving palestinian woman standing in front of a painting of a pierced heart.

1:00PM: Here is the Fox News interview with Israeli President Shimon Peres mentioned in yesterday’s post.

8:40AM: Photo of the day:

Tzipi Livni: I hope she doesn’t try to go all Britney on me..

Full story here.

She may have missed out on being Prime Minister, but I’m sure Tzipi is pretty happy she got to dine with Madonna and Jesus.

(Come to think of it, I wonder what the restaurant thought when they took a booking for “Madonna and Jesus.”)

With elections looming in problematic Israel, the race seems to be down to right-wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu and center party candidate Zipi Livni. Surprisingly, many Arabs favor a win by the seemingly more hawkish Netanyahu.

The considered opinion of political and business leaders in the region is that Netanyahu offers stability and the possibility of peace, while the inexperienced Livni brings a likelihood of volatility and crisis.

An Egyptian-trained economist pointed out the differences between the two Israeli candidates: “Netanyahu is an experienced politician who has the highest likelihood of bringing a stable government to Israel. A stable Israel means a stable region, and right now this is very important; the coming years are a crucial time for many Arab countries to develop their economies, and an unstable Israel makes that unlikely. Netanyahu’s agenda is centered on economic growth as his top priority, so he needs quiet and stability as much as everyone else, and maybe more.”

“Livni, the centrist Kadima party candidate, has an unclear agenda at this stage. Although her outlook is assumed to be less hawkish then Netanyahu, there is a strong feeling that her inexperience will lead to increased risk of conflict. She is unlikely to enjoy a firm power base in Israel, and this, combined with her inexperience in foreign and security affairs, means that her handling of crisis will likely escalate situations. Moreover, such a weak leader is too much of an opportunity for groups such as Hamas and Hizbullah to ignore, so crisis situations seem sure to turn up.”

Surprisingly, Netanyahu’s appeal to the Arab moderates is also based on a higher possibility for peace, the Egyptian scholar explained: “When you look at actions instead of rhetoric, the only Israeli leaders who have actually made land concessions to the Palestinians and the Arab states have been the right wing Israeli prime ministers – Menahim Begin withdrew from occupied Sinai, and Arial Sharon vacated the Israeli settlements in the Gaza strip. In both cases they used their own army to forcefully evict the Israeli settlers from the occupied lands. Israel’s right wing leaders are obstinate but they understand reality, and they have the authority to impose peace agreements on their public. A weak leader like Livni will not be able to push through any potential deal with the Palestinians or with Syria.”

Peering south along the Mediterranean coast towards Tel Aviv, residents of Beirut also ponder which of the leading candidates for the leadership of Israel offers the best prospects to Lebanon. Much of the city’s business community favors opposition leader Netanyahu over government minister Livni.

A trader in the Beirut stock exchange explained it simply: “When the wolves smell weakness they attack, but we have seen these attacks, no matter how successful, always involve an Israeli retribution. Sadly, when this happens it is Lebanon’s economy that pays the heavy price for adventure. We are just getting back to being a success after the summer of 2006 nearly wrecked us. We need a few years of quiet now, not a renewal of fighting. Livni is weak and inexperienced, and this is too much for our wolves to resist. Netanyahu is not nice, but he is strong, not a pushover. I believe that he is our best chance for quiet.”

A shopkeeper in the city center also had a similar opinion. Smiling at the Saudi tourists filling his shop, he asserted that Netanyahu makes a far less tempting target than Livni. Noting his interest in maintaining peace and quiet in Lebanon, he said that “The problem is that we have some people that just look for an opportunity to make trouble. The best way to avoid this is simply not to give them the opportunity”.

The political analysis in the Hizbullah-dominated neighborhoods of Beirut seems to be the same, but with opposite conclusions. When questioned about their opinions, several young men there noted that the election of Livni will open a window of opportunity to make further advances against the Jewish state, noting the fighting in 2006 as a significant victory.

But not everyone was bent on direct action. One man said that even if the resistance movements do nothing, a Livni-lead government would weaken Israel and hasten “the day of their collapse”, adding “We should only take action when our leaders decide it is in our interest.”

Livni to Mofaz: You are my number 2

Kadima Chairwoman Tzipi Livni  told Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz on Thursday that she considers him her “no. 2″ in the party, regardless of the technical issues related to securing him a spot on Kadima’s Knesset roster.

And you thought politics got ugly in the US.

Remember, this is purely resemblance based on photographs and not a reflection of my opinion of her.

I am happy with the result in the sense that it spares us more Olmert. The downside is it gives us Livni.

Meanwhile, I would like to ask my Israeli readers and anyone who follows events in Israel closely: In your opinion, was Olmert Israel’s worst ever Prime Minister?

I think you can guess my answer.

Update: Betrayed by the exit polls! Now it looks like the results were closer than predicted, with Livni not having achieved the 40% minimum, and Mofaz even gearing to appeal the results. Which for all intents and purposes means Olmert is not stepping down just yet.

Out of all the people in the crowd, and I get stuck sitting next to the Ehud Olmert lookalike!