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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.

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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.”

Asaf Ramon Crash - AP

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)

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