Click refresh to see new updates during the day
US President Barack Obama reportedly informed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu claimed any cessation of settlement construction and acknowledgment of a palestinian state on the 1967 borders will result in the collapse of his coalition government.
Mubarak reportedly showed understanding for Netanyahu’s predicament.
Arab sources say Mubarak was not impressed and retorted it was Netanyahu’s choice to form a right-wing coalition and he could therefore not repeatedly use that excuse for doing nothing.
Of course, this report seems to contradict another one that indicated Mubarak believes Netanyahu will agree to a palestinian state.
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)
10:50PM: Question: What is worse than UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon being incompetent?
Answer: UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon being complicit.
United Nations peacekeepers helped Lebanese security forces uncover a suspected Israeli spy ring, the head of the Spanish contingent in the force, General José María Prieto Martinez, has told Spain’s defense minister.
But Spain’s Defense Ministry has rushed to deny the officer’s report, insisting that it was due to a misunderstanding, and that Spanish troops are not authorized under the UN mandate to take part in the operations of the Lebanese army.
Martinez’s comments caused a stir in Spain’s media, since he made them during a video conference with the minister, Carme Chacón, in which other Spanish military commanders also participated.
He told Chacón that his forces, part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), had searched for Israeli spied over the past week, and that a number of arrests had been made.
Of course, this should not take anyone by surprise.
9:35PM:But did he have the munchies?
A one-and-a-half-year-old boy high on marijuana was brought to a children’s intensive care unit for treatment on Thursday, after his parents noticed that he was overly sleepy, apathetic and walking unsteadily.
Which leads us to the moral of the story:
9:15PM: Barack Obama’s envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, has urged Arab states to take “meaningful steps and important actions” to make peace with Israel.
Ceasing their support of terrorism and giving up on their plans to destroy Israel would be a good place to start.
8:06PM: Shi’ite head meets fellow shi’ite head.
US President Barack Obama’s speech reaching out to Muslims had strong points, Lebanon’s most influential Shi’ite cleric told former president Jimmy Carter, but people were waiting for real results.
Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah made the comments Tuesday night during a meeting at his office with Carter, who was in Lebanon to monitor last weekend’s parliamentary elections.
In his speech in Cairo on June 4, Obama promised to work aggressively to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, called for a halt to Israeli settlement construction on lands claimed by the Palestinians and spoke of the need for a Palestinian state.
Fadlallah, widely believed to have been Hizbullah’s spiritual leader in the 1980s, is a harsh critic of US policies in the Middle East, which many Arabs believe are biased toward Israel.
Though he has since distanced himself from the group, he has followers worldwide among Shi’ites, including in Iraq.
Fadlallah also criticized US allies in the region for being undemocratic.
“The friends of the United States in the Arab world don’t have elections or democracy, but [rather] regimes that are run by intelligence agencies and emergency laws,” said a statement released by Fadlallah’s office, in an apparent reference to US allies Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.
During a visit to Lebanon in December, Carter said he would have been “delighted” to meet with Hizbullah officials and that he regretted the group’s leaders’ refusal to meet with current or former American presidents.
6:32PM: MKs to Shimon Peres: STFU
6:05PM: Gives new meaning to the expression Family Ties.
A 15-year-old boy from a village near the West Bank town of Qalqiliya was tortured and executed by family members who suspected him of collaborating with Israel.
A spokesman for Palestinian security forces in the West Bank, Adnan al-Damairi, said the boy was found dead at a family storeroom.
At first, Palestinian officials believed the boy was murdered as result of a criminally motivated domestic dispute, yet a probe conducted by Palestinian police forces revealed the horrifying truth.
Officials said the victim, Raed Sualha, was tortured before he was hanged by his relatives, who suspected that he collaborated with Israeli security forces.
For how long are people going to make excuses for the palestinians? They have no compunctions about murder, and it was not Israel who made them this way.
I have said it many times before: even if I believed the palestinians had the right to their own state within the borders of Israel (which I do not believe), they would have long ago forfeited it due to their immoral behavior.
5:35PM: Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah making fun of former US Ambassador to the UN and staunch Israel supporter John Bolton.
Observations:
- Notice the young, modern-looking women in in the crowd at around 00:48-00:52. Hizbullah are not just appealing to Saddam Hussein lookalikes.
- I don’t think anyone who looks like this should be making fun of anyone else’s appearance
- I wonder if Nasrallah watches The Simpsons
5:18PM: Meanwhile, Peanut Boy has once again said that there can’t be peace between Israel and the palestinians unless Hamas is directly involved.
Think of the sheer idiocy of that for a moment. No peace unless a group committed to your destruction is directly involved. It is like asking the US to sit down and talk with Al Qaeda.
2:08PM: This is the picture of Holocaust memorial shooter James von Brunn being shown in the media and the blogs.
In case you, like me, thought “Wow, he looks pretty good for a 88-year-old”, here is a more recent picture.
Meanwhile, here is more on him from Fox News.
1:20PM: Philippe Karsenty, who helped expose the Al Dura hoax, talks to Israel National News.
12:45PM: In a meeting with the EU’s chief foreign policy official, Javier Solana, Israeli President Shimon Peres called for the establishment of a palestinian state with temporary borders “subject to a clear promise that the border will in a short span of time become permanent borders.”
This before the Israeli Prime Minister – who has not voiced support for a palestinian state – has made his policy speech.
I would have hoped that Peres had realized by now he has caused so much damage to this country, and should confine himself strictly to ceremonial duties.
11:22AM: Another Gazan tunnel smuggler accident.
A young Gazan was suffocated as he struggled to drag smuggled goods through an Egypt-Gaza border tunnel Thursday morning, medical sources said.
The young man was identified as 25-year-old Rami Ziyad At-Tubasi, who worked in a tunnel at the As-Salam neighborhood in Rafah.
Head of Emergency and Ambulance Services in the Gaza Strip Dr Muawiyah Hassanein said At-Tubasi was suffocated by a rope around his neck pulling supplies through a tunnel.
Not again.
11:13AM: Thank you, President Obama!
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Wednesday the Palestinians are in a position of strength vis-a-vis Israel for the first time in their history.
Moral of the story? Terrorism pays. Big time.
11:12AM: Palestinian terrorists opened fire at IDF troops near the Karni cargo crossing on the Gaza border this morning, prompting the IDF to return fire. There were no casualties on either side.
7:48AM: According to sources close to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, he will announce in Sunday’s foreign policy speech the adoption of the road map and the “two-state solution,” but will demand a number of things from the palestinians, including recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, and that the future palestinian state be demilitarized.
7:38AM: Some curiously extraneous information from the Herald Sun report on the Washington DC Holocaust Museum shooting:
President Barack Obama was “concerned” and “saddened” to learn of the attack which came just days after he visited the Middle East and pressed Israel to halt the settlement building in the West Bank, his spokesman said.
It is good to see they can still work some anti-Israel bias into a report on this tragedy.
6:05AM: Caryl Churchill’s anti-Semitic play “Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza,” will be staged in Tel Aviv’s Kikar Rabin this evening, thanks to the efforts of Israel-Arab director Samieh Jabbarin, and some Jewish accomplices.
5:52AM: Here is Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright mouthing off against Jews and Zionists.
