Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, fresh off what was widely viewed as his “undiplomatic” address to the UN General Assembly last month, told his visiting Spanish and French counterparts on Sunday that before coming to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they should concentrate on the problems in their own backyard.
“I don’t expect you to solve the problems of the world, but I certainly expect that before you come here to teach us how to solve conflicts, you will deal with the problems in Europe and solve those conflicts,” Lieberman told French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos, who arrived on Sunday for a day of talks in Israel, followed by a day of talks in the Palestinian Authority.
Lieberman said that after solving the conflicts in the Caucasus and Cyprus, and after making peace between Serbia and Kosovo, then the Europeans can come here and “we will listen to your advice.”
“In 1938, the European community decided to appease Hitler instead of supporting Czechoslovakia and sacrificed them [sic] without gaining anything,” Lieberman said.
“We will not be Czechoslovakia of 2010. We will ensure the security of Israel.”
Lieberman said it seemed as if the international community was trying to make up for all its failures in solving conflicts around the world by forging an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians in one year.
“What about the struggle in Somalia, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Sudan?” he asked. “Instead of talking now with the Arab League about the future of a referendum in Sudan, or discussing the explosive situation in Iraq in 2012, the international community is applying great pressure on Israel.”
Lieberman said that while the international community was talking about bringing about calm in the region, it would likely cause the exact opposite and “bring about an explosion like what happened after Camp David in 2000.”
6:08PM: I was going to comment on this photo today, but then I saw Honest Reporting beat me to it.
And then I saw I had beaten them to it.
AP photographer Nasser Shiyoukhi (via IsraellyCool) was standing next to Bader and took the same photo. Shiyouki’s caption is remarkably more honest. The soldier “uses his rifle to indicate the direction as he tells a Palestinian boy to leave the scene . . .”
Governor of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer won an award of excellence from magazine Euromoney on Sunday.
Fischer received the award, declaring him the best bank governor in the world, during the semi-annual International Money Fund conference in Washington DC.
The magazine praised Fischer’s work at balancing a recession with inflation, and helping Israel’s economy stay afloat.
The Palestinian Authority’s Education Ministry approved the use of a history textbook that offers the central narratives of both Palestinians and the Zionist movement, marking the first time that the accepted Israeli position is being presented to schoolchildren in the West Bank.
Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education official denied on Monday approving a textbook which teaches schoolchildren the Zionist and Palestinian narrative.
A member of the PA ministry’s curriculum committee Thwarwat Zaid rebuffed a report in Israeli daily Haaretz that the textbook had been approved and said the committee neither knew of the book nor read it.
5:20PM: French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner + dark glasses + scissors = accident waiting to happen
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos (2nd L) stands behind Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (C) and France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (front R) as they cut a ribbon during the inauguration ceremony for a new road, funded by the French Government, in the West Bank city of Jericho October 11, 2010. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman
See 5:50AM update for further enlightenment.
1:52PM: French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos are reportedly furious at the Israeli Foreign Minister for his honest-yet-undiplomatic-comments:
The foreign ministers of Spain and France were furious with their Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman, telling him Monday morning during a phone conversation that he had “violated every rule of diplomatic etiquette,” an Israeli source reported on Monday.
1:02PM: Israel’s channel 2 interviews a woman attacked by palestinian rock throwers in East Jerusalem a few minutes after David Beeri. Then Karen and the television crew themselves are attacked.
12:24PM: Ha’aretz reports on a wonderful initiative:
Israel is getting its first “socially conscious street”: Ringblum Street in Be’er Sheva, where 10 businesses all signed an agreement to uphold labor laws, offer handicap access, protect the environment and contribute to the community.
I assume this next photo was not taken in Ringblum Street, Be’er Sheva:
Translation: "Attention blind elevator passengers, please do not listen to the elevator announcements. The floor it announces is incorrect. Thanks."
I assume this is cruel humor for those who can see, and not pure dumbassery.
9:28AM: Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher is back in Israel, only a few months after his last visit.
Communication is the key word for Hollywood couple Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s current visit in Israel – whether it’s talking social networking in Tel Aviv, or reportedly renewing his wedding vows with his wife of five years.
“Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are here, and Ashton is going to give a speech on Monday at the Bezeq Expo in Tel Aviv,” said Ze’ev Michael Zoberman, the media marketing manager of the Tel Aviv Kabbala Center, which, along with Bezeq, is hosting Kutcher and Moore during their stay.
“They went to the Kotel on Saturday night, and on Sunday, they did some traveling in the North with Rabbi Yehuda Berg, the director of the Kabbala Center,” he added.
Kutcher was in Israel only two months ago with Scout, Moore’s daughter with ex-husband Bruce Willis. On that visit, Kutcher attended the birthday party of Rabbi Shraga Berg, Yehuda’s father and the founder of the Kabbala Center, together with hundreds of Kabbala enthusiasts in Beit Shmuel, the Center for Progressive Judaism in Jerusalem.
Kutcher and Moore were married in 2005 at a ceremony at the Kabbala Center in Los Angeles, and have long been involved in Kabbala activities after being introduced to it by their friend Madonna.
On Sunday, Kutcher wrote on his Twitter account: “Sharing Love & Light while in Israel.
Asking 4 the energy 2 forge bonds with our similarities & find compromise in our differences.”
Kutcher is the third mostpopular member of Twitter, with 5,909,523 followers, the main reason he was invited to speak at the Bezeq Expo, which is marking the one year anniversary of its Next Generation Network (NGN) technology.
According to the expo’s website, “this year the event [at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds] will be dedicated to the subject of communications in a multidimensional world, in which the thin line between imagination and reality will be presented through means of innovative technologies and the most advanced developments based upon last year’s newly-inaugurated Ultra-Broadband of the NGN network.”
“Ashton is going to speak about his activity in new media, and the companies he’s involved in related to gaming and social networks,” said Zoberman. “He’s been on the edge of some interesting projects with new companies in these fields, and of course, he was an early champion of Twitter.”
Kutcher is a major investor in Internet properties, and he’s the owner of a successful multiplatform media company called Katalyst.
According to Bezeq, the actor “symbolizes more than anyone else the social network revolution, with over 5 million Twitter followers.”
While his speech on Monday may be the official reason why Kutcher and Moore are here, according to a report in Britain’s Daily Mail, there are more personal reasons.
The paper reported that Kutcher and Moore were planning to renew their wedding vows in Israel, weeks after reports emerged in the media about Kutcher’s alleged infidelity.
Meanwhile, contender for Most Unnecessary Sentence of the Day:
In the most recent allegation, Kutcher’s purported mistress, Brittney Jones, told The Star tabloid over the weekend that Kutcher and Moore have an open marriage regularly involving threesomes, with women handpicked by Moore.
That topic, naturally, is not expected to be part of the Bezeq Expo.
8:22AM: Ma’an reports on the brutal murder of a palestinian boy.
A father from Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza killed his son by setting fire to him because the boy refused to help the family pick olives, police said.
Security forces identified the father as AN, and said the 40-year-old threatened to torch his son Mohammed, 14, when he refused to help him harvest olives. The father then sent the boy’s brother to get Benzene and gave him 2 shekels ($0.50) to buy a lighter.
Police said AN chased Mohammad into the bathroom, and poured fuel over him. The boy managed to escape and ran towards his grandmother’s house next door, but his father caught him and set alight to him. Mohammad’s grandmother told police that she opened the door to find her grandson’s body burned.
Mohammad’s father was arrested and questioned by police, who said he has been charged with murder.
At the time of this post, this story is not mentioned anywhere on the mainstream media (nor the Israeli media). Why is that? Is the killing of a palestinian boy only newsworthy when at the hands of an Israeli?
And what’s the bet the so-called peace and human rights organizations will not condemn it? Again, it is not interesting to them, since it does not fit their agendas of hastening the destruction of the Jewish state. Heck, these kinds of stories actually undermine their agendas, since they highlight the barbarity pervasive within palestinian society.
Nevertheless, Ma’an commenter Maureen from Australia finds a way to blame this murder on Israel.
Jabala refugee camp. Without Zionist occupation of Palestine, families would not be struggling, physically and mentally, to exist under a Zionist strangle hold.
It has been revealed that Hamas issued a warning against visiting the Facebook page of one of the senior members of its military branch – and two days later he was killed in a targeted IDF killing. Nasat al-Karmi and Mamun Natashe were responsible for the murder of four Israelis near Hebron in August.
As early as Wednesday, two days before the targeted killing, a warning was issued on Hamas’ online forum, telling participants to stay away from a Facebook page created for Karmi. The message expressed suspicion that the creators of the page were in fact Fatah intelligence operatives, who created it in the hopes of getting closer to Karmi’s close circle, and through them, to Karmi himself.
Additional warnings were posted on the Facebook page’s “wall”, which was supposedly created in support of Karmi. They were erased a short time later.
In other news, Hamasholes are on Facebook, which is interesting, considering it was created by the son of an ape and pig.
5:50AM: Photo of the day:
French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, left, and his Spanish counterpart Miguel Angel Moratinos, right, attempt to shake hands simultaneously with Israeli President Shimon Peres, before their meeting in Jerusalem, Sunday, Oct. 10, 2010. Kouchner and Moratinos are on an official visit to Israel and the West Bank (AP)
These guys can’t even shake hands, and they are supposed to help bring peace?
But it gets worse. Remember this?
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. (AP)
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
