(hat tip: Random Thoughts)

Update: Behold, another contender emerges.

That’s what I call killing two birds with one stone.*

* Turn of phrase meant to offend PETA

(hat tip: Melvyn)

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, PA President Mahmoud Abbas and President Barack Obama are set to meet on Tuesday, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, according to a surprise White House announcement on Saturday night.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

7:32PM: Earlier today, palestinians fired on Defense Ministry laborers engaged in infrastructure work. The IDF responded by firing mortar shells at the gunmen.

7:15PM: Back when I lived in Australia, a journalist by the name of Liam Bartlett was the news anchor for one of the local television stations. He seemed like a pretty laid back, affable fellow, and when he made it on to the Australian version of 60 minutes, he showed signs of not following in the footsteps of fellow 60 minuter Richard Carleton. In other words, not displaying an incredible anti-Israel bias.

Well, that was then and this is now. Watch here for Liam Bartlett’s blatantly one-sided treatment of the conflict.

And Bartlett’s blog reveals more of the same.

Bartlett shows no hint of even trying to cover the story fairly. He has made up his mind that the so-called” settlements” are wrong, and their inhabitants “extremists.” He takes the word of his palestinian interviewees as fact, while deriding the statements of the “settlers.” There is not even a mention of the terrorism plaguing Israel, and which is the reason for the checkpoints and security fence he is so quick to deride. In fact, one gets the impression that Bartlett would justify terrorism from palestinians, given their allegedly bad treatment at the hands of Israel and those “extremist settlers.”

Bartlett describes anti-fence demonstrations in which participants throw rocks at soldiers as “peaceful” (I’m guessing he has never been hit in the head with a rock, although if he had been, that would explain a lot). He also makes no mention of the context of the war in which Israel captured the territories in dispute, nor the other wars in which the Arabs made very clear their intentions to destroy the tiny Jewish state. And speaking of which, notice how Bartlett describes how tiny the “West Bank” is. He is simply not interested in the fact that Israel is the tiny place surrounded by hostile neighbors out to destroy her, which is the key to understanding the whole conflict.

(Thanks to both my mum and Gedalia for bringing this to my attention)

3:55PM: Old and busted: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

New hotness: Zionist man slayers of death.^TM

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday he was proud he had managed to enrage the West by denying the Holocaust during a speech he made in Tehran in honor of Jerusalem day.

Ahmadinejad was quoted by the Iranian News Agency (IRNA) as saying that the angering of “professional man-slayers is a source of pride for us and will not stand in our way”, apparently in reference to Israel and the West.

“The more these imperialists, enemies of humanity and those whose hearts have no love for the human kind run wild, screaming and throwing accusations, we know our path is correct,” said Ahmadinejad.

1:50PM: How bad is the Goldstone report? Even the former editor in chief of the leftist Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz has ripped it.

Excerpt:

Israel intentionally went after civilians in Gaza — and wrapped its intention in lies.

That chilling — and misguided — accusation is the key conclusion of the United Nations investigation, led by Richard Goldstone, into the three-week war last winter.

1:25PM: How bad is the Goldstone report? Hamas is urging the world to embrace it.

De facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh urged world powers on Sunday to embrace a recently-released report on alleged war crimes committed during Israel’s recent war on the Gaza Strip.

“We hope the report … will not be doomed to the fate of the dozens of reports that Israel has condemned for decades,” referring to the report of the fact-finding mission led by Justice Richard Goldstone.

Released last week, Goldstone’s 575-page report drew criticism from the US and Israel for its finding that Israel committed war crimes during the attack on Gaza. While the report focuses on Israel, it also calls for further investigations into alleged violations by Palestinian armed groups.

Responding to the alleged Palestinian violations, Haniyeh said he “affirm[s] our right to self-defense under international law.”

Haniyeh specifically asked the Arab League and European countries to use all means to make sure the report is brought to the attention to the UN Security Council and then referred to prosecutors.

11:15AM: Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was the national security advisor of former US President/current fossilized meddler Jimmy Carter, has said in an interview that the US should use force against IAF planes if they fly over Iraq to strike Iran.

Is the fallout as bad if Israel preemptively strikes Iran?

Absolutely. That is the way, more importantly, how the Iranians would view it. They really can’t do much to the Israelis, despite all their bluster. The only thing they can do is unify themselves, especially nationalistically, to rally against us, and the mullahs might even think of it as a blessing.

How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America’s worst interest?

We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?

What if they fly over anyway?

Well, we have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a Liberty in reverse.

10:15AM: Roseanne Barr:

I will be atoning for the sins of the state of Israel on behalf of the jewish soul. I may be one of the only jews on earth doing this, and so I feel compelled to do it even more strongly. It is very neccessary that this be done, because without atonement and repentance for the things we have done to offend and abuse our neighbors, we will be erased as a people, according to the teachings of our holy books.

Our very existence is the thing which offends our neighbors. I certainly won’t be atoning for that.

By the way, I am really curious as to where in our Holy books Barr found reference to us being erased as a people for offending our neighbors. Curious, since no such reference exists.

9:00AM: Sweden is giving us another reason to dislike them, besides the organ harvesting blood libel, their refusal to condemn it, and ABBA.

5:50AM: Here is Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren’s response to the Goldstone report, to which I linked a few days ago, but now embedded for your viewing pleasure.

5:40AM: Here’s Russian President Dmitry Medvedev talking about Iran, including the claim Israeli President Shimon Peres assurance to him that Israel would not attack Iran, and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s recent “secret” trip to Russia.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry will focus its efforts to combat the Goldstone report on the United States, Russia and some other members of the United Nations Security Council and the Human Rights Council involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The message?

That the report threatens those countries because it makes the war on terror very difficult, and therefore efforts must be made to prevent it from being brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

This looks very much like Israel’s message vis-a-vis Iran: This is not just our problem, but the world’s.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu already raised the issue yesterday with US special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, while Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon discussed it with US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and other senior officials. Netanyahu plans to speak in the coming days to other prime ministers of countries represented on the Human Rights Council.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

5:10PM: It’s now Professor Richard Landes’ turn to fisk Goldstone. And what a glorious fisking it is.

5:08PM: J-Wire brings us a report that is flying pig material.

Ethnic broadcaster SBS has instructed its journalists not to use the terms “Palestinian lands” or “disputed territories” in matters relating to the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

In a memo issued by Paul Cutler, Head of News and Current Affairs, journalists were told that the decision had been made by the ombudsman.

The memo states  ”Reasonable effort should be made to ensure news and current affairs programs are balanced and impartial “

In making the ruling, the Ombudsman said: “The land concerned remains the subject of protracted and deep dispute and therefore the reasonable viewer could consider that the use of the term “Palestinian Land” indicates a lack of impartiality as required under the Codes.”

The status of Israeli settlements on the West Bank is controversial, and is the subject of ongoing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

When discussing territory whose status remains the subject of negotiation, care must be taken to ensure that the language used is neutral and cannot be interpreted as being favourable to one side over another.  The best way to achieve this is to describe the geographic location of the settlements e.g. “Israeli settlements on the West Bank” or “Israeli settlements on the outskirts of Jerusalem” or similar.  We should avoid describing them as “on Palestinian land” or “on disputed land”.

But an SBS writer told J-Wire: “We did not know that an Ombudsman even existed and that includes staff members who have been here for ages.”

He told J-Wire that “Palestinian lands” used in reference to the West Bank and East Jerusalem was considered  a “partisan term”. He said: “We have been told to stick to geographical descriptions rather than political. It all seems Orwellian nonsense and the directive has been met with surprise and dismay.”

The journalist told J-Wire “SBS is interested in avoiding complaints”.  The SBS memo, however, clearly states that the new instructions have been implemented to maintain impartiality and fair balance. It also cites Middle East peace talks “gaining momentum”.

4:53PM: Now it’s Dersh’s turn to rip the Goldstone report.

Excerpt:

The lowest blow and the worst canard contained in this lie-laden report is that the Israeli judicial system is incapable of conducting investigations and bringing about compliance with international law.

It claims that the Israeli judicial system “has major structural flaws that make the system inconsistent with international standards,” and that “there is little potential for accountability for serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law through domestic institutions in Israel.”

This is a direct attack on the Israeli Supreme Court by a lawyer who knows full well that there is no country in the world that has a judicial system that demands more accountability than the Israeli system does. There is no judicial system in the world – not in the United States, not in Great Britain, not in South Africa, not in France – that takes more seriously its responsibility to bring its military into compliance with international law.

4:48PM: Richard Goldstone has denied his team set out on a biased mission.

“I deny that completely,” Judge Richard Goldstone said in remarks broadcast on Thursday on public radio, following Israeli accusations.

“I was completely independent, nobody dictated any outcome, and the outcome was a result of the independent inquiries that our mission made,” he said.

Goldstone told interviewers that he stood behind his commission’s findings and regretted only Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation.

“If there is any difference that I would have preferred, [it] would have been that we could have got cooperation from Israel and in particular, I would have liked the Israeli government to assist us and decide what we should investigate because that’s what I asked them to do,” he said.

Sure. Goldstone has admitted to receiving a copy of a 160-page report from the Israeli Foreign Ministry which details the Israel’s claims one by one, including images and other proof of rocket attacks, the murder of Israeli civilians, and the violation of human rights by Hamas. Yet it does not seem to have made an iota of a difference. Then there’s the fact that bloggers have started going through Goldstone’s report and easily pointed to reports and video contradicting the main findings – reports and video Goldstone and his team could have easily found had they wanted to.

Sorry, Goldstone, but I don’t buy that you’re not out to get Israel, just because you and your daughter say so.

3:52PM: An Israeli woman fatally wounded during the October 2005 terrorist attack at the Hadera open-air market, has died after lying unconscious in the hospital for the past four years. She leaves behind a husband and three children, aged 6, 7, and 15.

3:15PM: Cause and effect:

A day after the army began removing 100 dirt and stone roadblocks in the West Bank in an effort to make life easier for Palestinians, the IDF thwarted a stabbing attack on Thursday morning in the Metzad settlement of Gush Etzion

10:35AM: Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren interviews Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon about Iran becoming a nuclear nation.

9:00AM: Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor discusses the Goldstone report in the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

Mr. Goldstone’s professional qualifications are anchored in international law, but if anything, this report highlights the absurdity of a vocabulary and framework that are anachronistic. Applying classical concepts and terms to terror and asymmetric urban warfare, in which the entire population is a massive human shield and hospitals are used as command headquarters, as in the case of Gaza, is ridiculous. The report fails to deal with the difficulty of defining a civilian in this context, and following the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the report classifies the members of the Hamas “police” as civilians, erasing their membership in Hamas’ armed forces and their participation in the rocket barrages targeting Israeli civilians.

On most issues, Mr. Goldstone followed the lead and biases of NGO “superpowers” particularly Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch’s publications on Gaza have been discredited following the exposure of the obsession with Nazi memorabilia and false claims of its “senior military expert,” Marc Garlasco. But his allegations are adopted in this report, again without any independent investigation and despite the testimony of military experts who exposed Mr. Garlasco’s fictions. Indeed, Mr. Goldstone’s long relationship with Human Rights Watch, including his membership on its board, added to the credibility problems of this inquiry.

Similarly, the attempt to shove the role of Iran under the carpet follows the lead of these NGOs, as does the decision to ignore video evidence showing the use of civilians as cover for Hamas fighters attacking Israel (human shields), including the launch of rockets from schools. Instead, copying the unreliable NGO claims almost word for word, the issue is dismissed on the grounds that the committee “received no reports of such incidents from other sources.” No independent research was conducted.

Read the whole thing.

8:52AM: I’ve heard of Carpal tunnel, but this is ridiculous.

A Hamas operative revealed to Ynet Wednesday that smuggling tunnels spread throughout the border between Egypt  and Gaza were now being used to smuggle new cars into the Strip, in pieces.

For the first time in three years new automobile models, produced in 2009, are being spotted on the streets of Gaza after car dealers have succeed in smuggling them through underground tunnels regularly bombed by Israel.

This is, of course, not the first time the palestinians have smuggled in things they ride.

5:45AM: Flashback: The tale of 21-year-old Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Biss, who in 2005 attempted a suicide bomb attack on Israel’s Soroka hospital, where she was a patient.

5:38AM: Israellycool reader Haim has located the anti Toronto Film Festival boycott letter here.

Asaf Ramon, killed in yesterday’s F16 crash, is to be buried next to his father, in a ceremony attended by the Prime Minister of Israel, who is postponing his meeting with US special envoy George Mitchell to attend.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

6:38PM: Together again: A few hours ago, Asaf Ramon was laid to rest next to his father Ilan Ramon.

5:05PM: Today’s must-read comes from my friend Richard Landes, who deals with the susceptibility of Western news media to palestinian disinformation.

4:40PM: Bizarro World: If George Galloway wasn’t the George Galloway we have to come to know and loathe.

4:22PM: Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu has stated there will not be a complete freeze on “settlement” building and that building in Jerusalem will proceed as usual.

“”The Palestinians expect a complete halt to building; it is now clear that this will not happen.. Jerusalem is not a settlement and the building [there] will continue as normal.”

“We clarified to the U.S. that we would continue building around 2,500 units whose construction had already begun. Two days ago, we authorized 450 additional units. I stated that we would consider reducing the extent of our building.”

“The reduction in building will be for a limited time and there is not yet an agreement with the U.S. on the period of time.”

11:00AM: Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (or someone impersonating him, if you subscribe to the view that he has been roasting in hell for some time) has warned the American people over their government’s close ties with Israel in an apparently new audio tape posted on an Islamist website.

“The time has come for you to liberate yourselves from fear and the ideological terrorism of neo-conservatives and the Israeli lobby,” Bin Laden’s latest tape said.

“The reason for our dispute with you is your support for your ally Israel, occupying our land in Palestine.”

Bin Laden/Bin Laden impersonator is capitalizing on the West’s (misguided) belief that the Arab-Israeli issue is the root cause of terrorism and the existence of groups such as Al Qaeda. This is simply not true. As Dore Gold wrote in his paper Israel is Not the Issue: Militant Islam and America:

A 1998 fatwa (religious ruling) issued by bin Laden jointly with militant Islamic leaders from Egypt, Pakistan, and Bangladesh provides an insight into the sources of his anti-Americanism.9 The document calls “on every Muslim…to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it.” True, bin Laden uses language like “the Zionist-Crusader alliance” that sweeps in the issue of Israel, but the primary justification for doing so is that “for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, [and] terrorizing its neighbors.” Having helped to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s with other Arab volunteers, bin Laden has now turned his attention to the remaining superpower, the United States. U.S. forces are specifically described as “Crusader armies spreading…like locusts.”

A second bin Laden grievance is “the continuing aggression against the Iraqi people.” The “guarantee of Israel’s survival” appears only as the third reason for criticizing U.S. policy. Bin Laden also refers to the Jews’ “occupation of Jerusalem,” but gives no indication whatsoever of accepting Jewish statehood within any borders. In fact, in 1998 he was critical of the Saudis for their support of “Yasser Arafat’s regime” against Hamas.10 Israel’s very existence is the issue — not the status of the peace process. It is not surprising that the planning and training for the September 11 attack is believed to have begun several years ago, well before the current Palestinian intifada and the stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. There simply is no correlation between the new terrorism facing the U.S. and the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Meanwhile, look who has emboldened the terrorists:

The speaker also appeared to refer to criticisms former US President Jimmy Carter made in June of Israel’s Gaza invasion earlier this year.

5:45AM: Well done to the AP, who’s bias is so pronounced, they can manage to make a group of homeless-looking palestinians the focus of a photo dealing with the tragic death of Asaf Ramon.

Bonus points for using the words “warplane” (twice) and “combat helicopter.”

A Palestinian family walk on a hill as an Israeli air force combat helicopter flies over the crash site of a F-16 warplane that was flown by Assaf Ramon, the son of an Israeli astronaut who died in the space shuttle Columbia disaster, near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Pnei Hever, west of Hebron, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009. The son of an Israeli astronaut who died in the space shuttle Columbia disaster six years ago was killed Sunday when his F-16 warplane crashed on a routine training flight, the Israeli military said. (AP Photo)

Making fun of the BBC never gets old (hat tip: The ShadowLands)

No bark mitzvah joke here. Move along.

Update: For those of you wondering what the Rabbi was doing, he was blowing a shofar. You can read more about why Jews do that here.

Via the New York Post.