I’ll update this during the day so be sure to check back in.
- Egypt are claiming they arrested another 12 terrorists on suspicion they were planning to attack Israeli tourists vacationing in the Sinai. But don’t let that obfuscate the fact that Hamas breached the border wall so palestinians could buy their groceries.
- 5 people were wounded after unidentified gunmen fired at the Israeli embassy in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott, while shouting “Allahu Akbar.” I think it’s fair to say at least their religion is identifiable.
- An Israeli victim of September 11, Alona Avraham, has been laid to rest. Unfortunately, I doubt the same can be said for those “Joooos did it” conspiracy theories.
- In yet another blow to my anti-French neurosis, leading French fashion magazine Vogue has dedicated three flattering articles to Israel and the city of Tel Aviv in its new issue.
Updates
1:00PM: According to two different polls, a majority of Israelis would like Olmert to resign from office. You don’t need a poll to forecast he won’t.
1:10PM: Finally a leader called Yassin who deserves to be commended, rather than introduced to an apache missile.
1:25PM: Former Defense Minister Amir Peretz doesn’t just do utterly incompetent. He’s also pretty adept at trying to protect himself at all costs.
Following Wednesday’s presentation of the Final Winograd Report, Peretz – who had refused for many months to speak about his role during the war – said at a Tel Aviv press conference Thursday morning that the committee’s findings showed the “absurdity” that “I bore the brunt of the public outcry and I was the convenient target of the public’s frustration at the missed opportunity and at everything that had been going wrong in the defense establishment for years.”
In fact, he said, “I had been on the job for just two months and was not a military man.”
“The tough questions [about the IDF’s condition on the eve of war] should be placed at the feet of those who decided the IDF should be a ‘small and smart’ army,” Peretz said. “They initiated the failure.”
Not being a “military man” did not stop Peretz from accepting the Defense Ministry in the first place. And don’t forget he was rather picky when it came to deciding which ministry to accept as a precondition for joining the coalition.
1:30PM: The Israeli version of Survivor is more about the environment surviving the experience, rather than the contestants.
