Homesh

I like Ynet News breezy irrelevant style even though it is a hard-core leftie online tabloid. But every once and awhile I come across a report like this and I just got give my head a shake.

Two soldiers were lightly injured Tuesday afternoon during confrontations with a group of settlers who they tried to prevent from reaching the former settlement of Homesh in the West Bank, the army said.

Hundreds of right-wing activists arrived in Homesh, defying a government decision to bar settlers and their supporters from marching to the evacuated settlement on Independence Day. The army said a scuffle erupted when the soldiers told the settlers that Homesh was off-limits. The army set up roadblocks on roads leading to the settlement which was evacuated in 2005 part of the disengagement plan.

You can read the whole article but there isn’t any mention of any of the marchers injured and the hundreds of marchers actually turned into thousands in Ha’aretz:

Two Israel Defense Forces soldiers were lightly wounded on Tuesday as they attempted to prevent protestors from reaching the site of the evacuated West Bank settlement Homesh. The soldiers were treated on the scene for light injuries and were not hospitalized.

According to organizers of the event, however, no soldier was attacked, saying a verbal argument broke out after a Border Police jeep struck a protester's leg. She was taken to hospital for medical treatment.

The organizers say some 25,000 people reached the site of the former settlement Tuesday. Zafrir Ronen of "Homesh First" said that organizers "had prepared for 2,000 to 3,000 participants, but there are between 20 and 30,000 - religious, secular, ultra-Orthodox, youth, and elderly. The police have given up. Our determination has proven itself, and people are making it all the way [to the settlement]."

Ronen added that the demonstrators intend to stay the night at the site, despite the fact that organizers had promised that all protesters would leave Homesh by nightfall Tuesday and not attempt to remain at the site. The army said that the protestors managed to make their way to Homesh mainly by taking shortcuts or by bypassing IDF roadblocks in the area.

Demonstrators marched from the settlement of Shavei Shomron in the West Bank to the site of the former settlement of Homesh at 11 A.M. on Tuesday. The march is meant to commemorate the former settlement, evacuated as part of the Gaza Disengagement in the Summer of 2005.

Among the participants seen leaving Shavei Shomron were four busloads of Likud activists. The army placed barricades in the northern West Bank in an attempt to stop protestors from reaching the ruins. This move followed an attempt by Defense Minister Amir Peretz and IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi to stop the march by requiring its organizers attain a parade approval.

IDF sources have stated that the army will not allow anyone who is not a resident of Shavei Shomron to travel to the area. Nonetheless, IDF sources have stated that there is zero chance that they will be able to stop the march entirely. Former chief rabbi of Israel Avraham Shapira blessed the Homesh march and issued his support for the efforts of the "Homesh First" organization.

Since I read two leftie accounts which differed I decided to see what Arutz Sheva was reporting on the Homesh march:

At the head of the main organized group of marchers, which set off at 11:00 am from a nearby town, was Nobel Prize Laureate Professor Yisrael Aumann. The world-renowned professor of game theory stated in recent days that he sees a return to Homesh as "signaling the imperative change of direction the state needs. The march to Homesh expresses very well the aspiration to be a free people in our land." Prof. Aumann addressed the gathered activists, as did the Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Arba, Rabbi Dov Lior.

According to Tzafrir Ronen, among the march organizers, the turnout was far beyond what the Homesh First umbrella group had planned on. "We prepared for about 3,000 people, and there are more than 30,000 here," Ronen said. Eyewitnesses said the total number number of marchers on the road numbered between seven and ten thousand.

Dozens of hired buses, including some organized without the help or knowledge of the march organizers, brought supporters of Homesh resettlement from all over the country. The Likud movement also formally joined in on the Homesh march during Tuesday morning. Four buses hired by the Likud party brought activists to the area.

Most of marchers are teenagers and people under the age of 30, many pushing strollers with toddlers and babies, although some are middle-aged and older. "I've seen some grandfathers climbing up the hill," said eyewitness Jonathan Stein. Several thousand people had reached the ruins of Homesh by early afternoon, Stein reported. Commenting on the determination of all of the participants to complete the hike, organizer Ronen said, "I have been to all the battles and all the demonstrations - I have never seen anything like this."

The participants are varied and represent "all types - religious, secular, Haredi, old people and young," according to Ronen. "They are all streaming towards Homesh in an unbelievable flow. The police was unable to cope and simply folded up its tent and left the area. Of four or five jeeps, there remains one, [whose occupants] have nothing to do but have a friendly chat with the marchers. Determination has proven itself. It is also clear to the police that this place is ours...."


Despite the generally peaceful nature of the march, isolated incidents of confrontation during the resettlement demonstration led to six arrests, according to an IDF spokesman. A few security officers allegedly got out of their vehicle and used their weapons to strike a marcher who stepped into the road. The security forces reportedly thought the man was blocking them; the man reportedly thought the jeep was going to hit a group walking along the road.

Two activists were arrested early in the evening after punching holes in the tires of several IDF vehicles on the road between Shavei Shomron and Homesh. One Israeli was arrested earlier in the day after a group of marchers attacked IDF soldiers who tried to stop them at a checkpoint, showing them papers classifying the area as a closed military zone. Two soldiers were lightly injured in the altercation and were treated at the nearby army base.

In another incident, three Israelis were arrested after blocking the road between Shavei Shomron and Homesh by parking vehicles across, and lying down in, the street, effectively preventing IDF vehicles and medical units from passing.

One young marcher was reportedly struck by a Border Guard jeep on the way to Homesh. She has been evacuated to hospital for treatment; her condition is unknown as of this writing.

(…)

Homesh First activists said they would leave the area at the end of the day, in cooperation with the IDF Central Command coordinating officers. Hundreds of marchers made their way out of the Homesh area before dark with no unusual events reported. It was not initially clear how the remaining marchers would return from the area, however, since the army did not allow buses or other vehicles in to pick up the demonstrators. This left 5,000 civilians, including women and children, who were forced to venture into the wilderness in the dark as they were unprepared for, nor allowed to, stay overnight.

So maybe the IDF command had a little more to do with the marchers not leaving the area by nightfall as planned than Israeli leftie papers want to admit publicly - or not. And it is interesting how Ynet makes no mention of a civilian marcher being hit but a Border Guard jeep….Ha’aretz at least alludes to a marcher being injured - even if no explanation is given for the young woman’s injuries.

Though the leftie rags Israeli government, and the IDF have a much larger issue to deal with. The size and diversity of the marchers belies the idea that this is a small group of religious fanatics intent on taking back the Homesh settlement. Throw in the on-going kassam attacks and an aborted kidnapping attempt from Hamas all launched from the former Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip. Add a very public show of support by a major Israeli political party (Likud) and you could potentially have a political turning tide.

Try Treason

The Toronto Star is reporting that the little snot-nosed pooh shoveling piece of pestilence in Gitmo has been charged with murder by the US authorities. The Toronto Star is already crying a river but rightly notes in their ode to whine:

The possibility seems unlikely, since Hicks' deal is largely credited to the intense public and political pressure to gain his release — something not seen in Canada where the Khadr family is largely reviled due to their past association with bin Laden.

And deservedly so.

You need to read the Globe and Mail to get the full monty of the charges he will be arraigned on; murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, spying and providing material support for terrorism. But I am not happy.

I think the Canadian government should apply for special prosecutor status and arraign the little snot-nosed pooh-shoveling piece of pestilence with a separate charge of treason. It was just a twist of circumstance he didn’t kill a Canadian combat medic rather than one of our allies’ combat medics. Once he’s up on the dock for treason, we can work our way through the Canadian criminal code. And if convicted, let the sentence start when the US sentence ends.

the plans of mice and men often go astray...and a good thing too.

Yesterday, Israelis celebrated their 59th year anniversary as a modern state, so it is only fitting that Ha’aretz carries a report on the American war plan to attack Israel in 1967.

For some time, the United States had had an emergency plan to attack Israel, a plan updated just prior to the 1967 war, aimed at preventing Israel from expanding westward, into Sinai, or eastward, into the West Bank.

In May 1967, one of the U.S. commands was charged with the task of removing the plan from the safe, refreshing it and preparing for an order to go into action.

This unknown aspect of the war was revealed in what was originally a top-secret study conducted by the Institute for Defense Analyses in Washington. The full story is detailed in Haaretz' Independence Day Supplement.

(…)

Strike Command, the entity that was to have launched the attack on Israel, no longer exists. It was annulled in 1971 for domestic American reasons and superseded by Readiness Command, which was abolished in the 1980s in favor of Central Command (CENTCOM) which today includes forces in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Afghanistan; and the Special Operations Command (SOCOM).

The general who oversaw the planning in 1967 was Theodore John ("Ted") Conway, then 56 and a four-star general, the head of Strike Command.

On May 20, 1967, according to L. Weinstein's confidential study for the Institute for Defense Analyses, cable No. 5886 of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was sent to EUCOM and STRICOM. STRICOM was asked to refresh the emergency plans for intervention in an Israeli-Arab war: one plan on behalf of Israel and the other, on behalf of the Arabs.

The basis for the directive was Washington's policy of support for the existence, independence and territorial integrity of all the states of the region. This translated into adherence to the Israeli-Arab armistice lines of 1949. The policy was not to allow Egypt, or any combination of Arab states, to destroy Israel, but also not to allow Israel to expand westward, into Sinai, or eastward, into the West Bank.

The American pressure in this regard brought the IDF back from El Arish in Operation Horev in 1949 and from Sinai in 1956. A version of it would appear in Henry Kissinger's directives after the IDF encircled Egypt's Third Army at the end of the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

Conway replied to the Joint Chiefs cable four days after it was sent. He was doubtful about combat intervention, and preferred an operation to evacuate American civilians from Israel and from Arab states.

The next day, the Joint Chiefs asked Conway for his opinion about how the United States should act if the war were to be launched by an Arab action or, alternatively, by an Israeli strike.

"The ultimate objective would be to stop aggression and insure the territorial integrity of all the Middle Eastern states," he was informed in cable No. 6365 of the Joint Chiefs, with a copy to EUCOM.

Conway's reply to this, dated May 28, is described in the top-secret study as "a strong plea for complete impartiality." The United States was liable to lose its influence to the Soviets, the general warned, and therefore it must demonstrate "strict neutrality" and avoid open support for Israel. The true importance of the Middle East lay in the American-Soviet context of the Cold War, Conway argued, and the American stance must derive from those considerations, not from "local issues."

Only as a last resort should the United States take unilateral action - and then only to put an end to the fighting. In the estimation of the STRICOM commander, the Egyptian forces were deployed defensively, whereas the Israelis were deployed in rapid-strike offensive capability.

On May 29, Conway recommended that any U.S. intervention be launched early in order to ensure the territorial integrity of all the countries involved; restoring the status quo ante would become more complicated as the attacking army captured more territory.

The supplemental report link can be found here. Personally, I am just glad Jimmy Carter wasn’t the US president in 1967. Betcha he regrets he wasn’t. The bottomline - be wary of Americans bearing gifts.

h/t Snoopy the Goon

Surprise! Surprise - not.

Last summer during the Israeli-Lebanon war, I referred to Hezbollah as the Iranian Foreign Legion. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs carries the following post on its website:

In a 15 April interview with the Iranian Arabic language TV station ‘al Qawthar’, Hizbullah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Kassem, told the interviewer that suicide bombings, terrorist attacks and even artillery barrages against Israeli civilians all receive prior approval from the Ayatollah’s in Teheran.

(…)
For many years, Hizbullah was careful not to implicate Iran in its terror operations. However, in a 15 April interview with the Iranian Arabic language TV station ‘al Qawthar’, Hizbullah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Kassem, told the interviewer that suicide bombings, terrorist attacks and even artillery barrages against Israeli civilians all receive prior approval from the Ayatollah’s in Teheran:
"The religious doctrine which dictates Hizbullah’s actions in general and those relating to the Jihad in particular, is based on the rulings of the spiritual leader in Teheran. The spiritual leader has the power to permit our actions, and the spiritual leader can forbid them.

"In order to know what is permitted and forbidden regarding the Jihad, we ask for and receive overall permission and only then do we carry out the operation. “Even with regard to the suicide bombings, no one is allowed to kill himself without religious authorization. “Even the rocket attacks on Israel, against the civilian population [Aug 2006] … in order to apply pressure, even this required overall religious authorization."

Well, well. That sounds pretty definitive to me.

h/t the Corner

I Spy

Geeze this is depressing. Check out the comment thread at the Globe and Mail on the story about the Canadian convicted in Egypt of spying for Israel while in Canada.

Alberto Bayo from Canada writes: If the charges are true, then this guy's a traitor, and treason is the worst imaginable crime. And working for Mossad? Yuk...those guys are a real sleazy, low-life lot.

Michael C from Canada writes: A Cairo court found Mohamed el-Attar, 31, guilty of belonging to a spy ring that worked for Israel, operating in Turkey and Canada.

This person is an Isreali spy. I don't think there's much to debate about the matter. However much our legal system is criticized, on the whole, it rarely makes mistakes (wrongfully convicted is a separate argument for another day). Where ate all the law and order zealots spewing their blabber about this? Where are all the Eurocentric citizenship zealots spewing their blabber. Might it be that Isreal gets a free pass because it's a western allie, ect. etc.? If this guy was a Muslim, there'd be 200 posts denigrating him at this point. Paradoxical, hypocritical idomeseo's.

Steve Tatone from Canada writes: The Mossad uses Canadian 'false-flags' all the time. Anyone remember the botched assasination in Jordan a few years ago where the Mossad guys had Canadian passports? They use our identity because Canadian citizens are trusted in most corners of the world. On the absolute other hand, Canada has a bit of a problem with special courts too, and its also possible that Attar is just some guy. Buuuuuut...on the first hand it seems like Isreal has been ratcheting up the Egyptian spying as of late, and this guy quite possibly spied on Canada for Isreal. In fact, there seem to be Isreali agents EVERYWHERE these days...

Alberto Bayo from Canada writes: This guy was nothing more than a low-level Mossad part-timer trying to make some quick money, and he got caught. Tough.

There’s more, and a lot more, all in a similar vein. What baffles me is how these alleged critical thinkers assume the Egyptian authorities are an unimpeachable source for both truthfulness and integrity.

Then there is the warped presumption that foreign spy agencies are all busy spying on other foreign spies, who are busy spying on the activities of Canadians in Canada, while the CSIS is completely asleep at the switch. And not one of the commenters (the last time I checked) asked what I would believe would be the obvious question.

If Egyptian government knew a Canadian Mossad agent was spying on the activities of Egyptian Arab Canadians while in Canada; why didn’t the Egyptian Authorities give a hat tip to the Canadian government? Do you really believe the Egyptians would pass on the opportunity to one-up the Mossad and embarrass the Israeli government internationally?

Shalom Bayit or Peace in the Home

Since this seems to be my day for religious orientated posts, I thought I would post another one.

Breslover Chassidim often comes under a great deal of criticism in Judaism but I have to admit I hold a special place in my heart for the followers of Rebbe Nachman. Maybe it was my early influences or maybe it’s because I find their joy and eternal optimism appealing in a world that is often fraught with sorrow.

The innate hazards of lurking in the background

One of the places I lurk quietly in the background is The Mad Zionist – with a name like that how could I not read? Anyway, a discussion started there which spilled out onto another blog – the Merry Widow. Following the discussion in the comment thread I came across an idea I had never actually encountered before. Actually I found the idea disturbing. Now I am wondering if this idea is part of mainstream Christian thought.

It concerns the angels. Long-time readers of my blog know that I am in the midst of writing a book but what most probably won’t know is that the story revolves around one of the Mal’akh Ha’maret or Angels of Death. And I have drawn heavily from the story of the Watchers from the book of Enoch as background. But here’s my question to Christian readers. Do you really believe that the Angels which are mentioned in the Old Testament are pre-incarnations of Christ or simply messengers from G-d?

Palestinian Angst

For a long time I have suspected what the West Bank and the Gaza Strip needed was a deployment of psychiatrists rather than peacekeepers or soldiers. Ynet News carries this report.

Palestinian security forces have been seeking emotional counseling, following "internal infighting in Gaza". Dr. Riad al-Aqra, the director for the Gaza hospital for mental health, said that "although the occupation is a major cause for emotional depression for Gaza residents…Palestinian infighting plays a striking role in the increase of shock, tension and depression, present in previously unseen amounts."

Dr. al-Aqra cited the Palestinian website Dunia al-Waran, stating that these phenomena were seen primarily among wives and mothers of Palestinian security force members, but also among the troops themselves.

"One member of the Hamas security force came to me suffering from high tension, which was causing physical problems. He said he felt fear from the fact that he would burn in hell forever if he fired even one bullet at someone," the doctor said. He told of another case, in which a member of the security forces arrived with similar symptoms. "He said he couldn't fire at another Muslim, and that he felt pain and bitterness," al-Aqra said.

I wish I could a pull a Bill Clinton and suggest I feel Hamas’ pain, but the Hamas pathology has never been mine - so they are SOL from me.

Apparently, Hamas has another front to their existential angst (Ynet News):

Hamas members were troubled by an additional issue this week: an altercation with the Egyptian branch of the hitherto supportive Muslim Brotherhood. The rift occurred after a senior leader in the organization, Abd al-Munam Abu al-Fatouh, announced that the Brotherhood supports the creation of a secular Palestinian state and a bi-national presence in Palestinian, as a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Hamas members were so incensed by al-Fatouh's announcement that the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Mahdi Akef, had to release a special statement refuting it.

Akef said, in his statement, that the Muslim Brotherhood believes that "Palestine is Islamic and therefore, holy to Muslims and, thus, belongs only to Palestinians." "No Palestinian has the right to refute this…The Zionists have no choice but to live under the rule of a Palestinian nation in which they will be free to worship their God and enjoy full rights of citizenship," Akef added.

"If the Zionists do not agree, our Palestinian brothers will have no choice but to resist and undertake all actions that are consistent with holy principles that were given to the Palestinians and that are in accordance with their national interests," he said.

I hope no one missed 'the Zionists have no choice but to live under the rule of a Palestinian nation'….yeah right. I betcha an IDF says different.

Anyway, I guess this is what passes for progressive in Arab political circles - the old 'push the Jews into the sea' rhetoric is missing, though personally, I could imagine very little worse than being a Jew under the rule of the Palestinian Authority. Talk about angst and not the existential kind. Frankly, I haven't ever met a Zionist who would ever chose to aspire to do so.

This is really starting to get bizarre.

A Canadian has been convicted of spying for Israel in Egypt and my early morning search for details at Canadian online papers turns up zilch. I recognize it’s still early so maybe one of the national papers will decide the event is a little newsworthy and devote a few lines. Once again, I found the story at Ynet News:

An Egyptian court convicted an Egyptian-Canadian dual citizen on Saturday of spying for Israel and sentenced him to 15 years in prison, and three Israelis tried in absentia were also found guilty, witnesses said.

Egyptian prosecutors said Israel recruited Mohamed Essam Ghoneim el-Attar, 31, in 2001 when he was living in Turkey and that intelligence agents assisted him in obtaining a residency permit in Canada under a fake name and found him work in a bank.

Attar was arrested in January at the Cairo airport when he returned home for a family visit, and was accused of being paid to spy on Egyptians and Arabs in Turkey and Canada and using his position in the bank to obtain information on specific accounts. Attar was also expected to scout and approach potential recruits, according to prosecutors, who said he was paid $56,000 before he was arrested.

The three Israelis convicted in absentia in the case, said to be Mossad agents, were also handed 15-year jail terms. All four defendants were fined 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($1,760). Israel has dismissed the case as a fabrication.

It would be laughable if a man’s life wasn’t hanging in the balance. The Israeli government has the right of it. The allegations were complete fabrication by the Egyptian authorities and the trial makes a mockery of the very concept of a justice system. Fifteen years because the Egyptian government needs an infusion of fresh blood to satisfy their lust for blood libels.

What I want to see and know about is what the Canadian government is prepared to do to free this citizen? Boring people to death with little fireside chats is not a solution. It’s long past the time for the Canadian government to stand up to these barbarous regimes with some dire consequences for nefarious actions undertaken against Canadian citizens. And yes, I think the Egyptian government qualifies as barbarous regime which should have no place or standing in the international community in the 21st century. Of course, if the Canadian government does find its backbone; I will probably have to read about it in Ynet News.

Busy Beavers

News junkie that I am, somehow I missed this report the first time round. Apparently, Montreal police has arrested two men last Friday for the firebombing at a Jewish Community Centre. There goes my news junkie credentials. Ironically, I only learned of the arrest when I read the headlines tonight at Ynet News, an Anglo-Israeli online newspaper.

Two Muslim men have been arrested in Montreal, Canada, following a firebomb attack on a Jewish community center, the Canadian Jewish News (CJN) reported. Omar Bulphred, 24, and Azim Ibragimov, 22, were arrested by Montreal police "for the firebombing attacks on the YM-YWHA Ben Weider Jewish Community Centre in Snowdon on April 3 and on the chassidic Skver Toldos Yakov Yosef school in Outremont on Sept. 2," the CJN said.

"Police described the arsons as motivated by hatred of Jewish people, and the men could therefore receive stiffer sentences if either is convicted. Police have not linked the two men to racist or terrorist groups, although the investigation continue," the report added. The report also said the men were planning to kidnap an unknown person, and had planned an armed robbery.

Gee, I wonder why I how I missed this in the Toronto Star? Apparently, the two men have been quite busy for Canadian Jihadis. Not only have the two been charged with attacks on the Jewish community centre and a Chassidic school but a car bombing as well one count each of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to forcibly confine someone.

Unholy Land Grabs

This Jerusalem Post article illustrates the very real challenges of land ownership in the Palestinian Authority:

Dozens of Christian families from the Bethlehem area are about to discover that their homes and lands have been "sold" to Muslims without their knowledge, Palestinian Authority security officials said Thursday. The officials told The Jerusalem Post that members of a local Muslim gang have been arrested on suspicion of stealing land and property registration documents from the Bethlehem Magistrate's Court.

Bethlehem Governor Salah Ta'mari confirmed that an investigation was under way to determine who was behind the theft. He said most of the stolen documents belonged to families living abroad. A Christian businessman told the Post that most of the victims were Christian families living in the US and Latin America. "They are stealing our homes almost every day," he said. "We believe the suspects have been receiving help from some Palestinian security officers here."

The scam was uncovered when court officials complained that many files relating to cases involving ownership of property had disappeared, a security official said. Initially, police thought thieves had broken into the court and stolen the files, he added. However, further investigation revealed that the theft was an inside job. Three court employees and five land dealers were later arrested in connection with the case.

The official refused to reveal the land brokers' identities, but sources in the city said some of them were not real land dealers. "These are people with close ties to the Palestinian security forces," the sources said. "We have written to the Palestinian Authority demanding a full inquiry. This is one of the biggest scandals in Bethlehem and many families are very worried that they may lose their property."

"The phenomenon of forging land registration documents has existed in Bethlehem for nearly 15 years," Ta'mari said. "We have resisted attempts to hinder the investigation and we are determined to fully pursue our efforts." Ta'mari said one common method of land theft was as follows: Someone forges ownership of a piece of land and registers it under his name. Then an accomplice pretends he has illegally seized the land.

The first person sues the accomplice, using the forged documents. The court then rules in favor of the first person, turning him into the "legal" owner. The proceedings take place without the knowledge of the real owner, who usually lives abroad.

This is the first time the PA has acted against land thieves in Bethlehem. The arrests have aroused hope within the local Christian minority that the investigation will lead to the restoration of their land. In January, it was first reported in the Post that Muslim gangsters, including a number of top PA security officers, had illegally seized Christian-owned property in Bethlehem and its surroundings.

In an interview with the Post, an elderly Christian couple, Fuad and Georgette Lama, complained that the gang had laid its hands on their six-dunam, or 1.5 acre, plot in the Karkafa suburb south of Bethlehem. "A lawyer and an official with the Palestinian Authority just came and took our land," said 69-year-old Georgette.
Senior PA security officers subsequently offered to help them kick out the intruders. "We paid them $1,000 so they could help us regain our land," she said. "Instead of giving us back our land, they simply decided to keep it for themselves. They even destroyed all the olive trees and divided the land into small plots, apparently so that they could offer each for sale."

It's great that the Palestinian Authority has decided to act this time - without Fuad & Georgette to pay for it, but all this kind of entrenched thuggery does not bode well for statehood. Would you want the Palestinian Authority for neighbors?

Self-Defense

I made a very deliberate decision yesterday not to watch the Cho home videos that have been made widely available in the media. I can’t stop the media from airing a 24/7 Cho-fest but I can choose not to participate by not watching.

In my mind, Cho is not a great mystery of the universe, and consequently, there is no personal value or knowledge to be gained from watching his home videos. Perhaps, if I was a trained psychologist, but I am not. If I were to sum it up I'd say, he was a madman and a crazed killer. I don’t have a definitive philosophy on why some of us are born on the outer edges of the human gene pool per say but I readily accept aberrations happen. We call argue till the cows come home on “why” it happens, but it has never stopped it from happening.

What is far more important to me is where do we go from here? Being a Canadian with a long history of stricter gun control laws than our American neighbors has not left us immune from school shootings. In fact, most Canadian schools have been “gun-free zones” longer than Virginia Tech officially has been, and still we have yet to be insulated us from these kinds of tragedies.

We can legislate from here to tomorrow but what do our laws mean to the Marc Lepine, Kimveer Gill or the Cho’s of our world? I suspect they are not more troubled by them than a moth crossing their path. So where do we go from here? Do we make a 360 degree turn and develop a culture of individual responsibility for self-defense? And if not; why not?

Here’s just one of the things I would like to see happen. Every child in every school across the country, irregardless of age, will have to take mandatory classes in self-defense until high school graduation - with an emphasis in the later grades of secondary school on teaching students how to turn every day objects into weapons.

Bad Batteries saves lives

Ynet News reports this:

An indictment filed against him this week revealed that the would-be bomber attempted to activate the device, which weighed 15 kilograms, while traveling on a bus from Jaffa to Rishon Lezion, but failed to do so due to a malfunction, apparently because the batteries were faulty.

I guess one can’t buy Everyready batteries in the PA which is a fact we should all be thankful for.

Manning up

My youngest son passed a benchmark last week, and oddly enough, I have felt out of sorts about it until the events of the past few days. Perhaps, it was because there is no ritual to acknowledge the change and in this - I am decidedly excluded. Maybe, it would have been easier if I could have at least given him a shield, and then I might not have initially felt so out of sorts.

Isaiah Sender is finally was old enough to go to boxing like his older brother and has officially joined the world of men. Yes, I know women box, and even at the club there are a few women training but it’s still the world of men. He is learning the meaning of the phrase to “man-up” in a decidedly old-fashioned way.

The closest I will come to handing him his shield will be later this month when I take Isaiah Sender for his physical and his first piss test. Then I will write a cheque to the provincial boxing association so he will be allowed to step into the ring and learn what it means to fight - to hit and be hit hard.

Every since I dragged his older brother off to boxing, Isaiah has longed to go. I am not sure why the idea of binding up their hands to slip on a pair of gloves and to step into a ring to take on another male in a fight makes their hearts sing with joy but there it is. And it seems it cannot be denied nor should it.

I have told my sons for the first 12 years of their life they are not to fight, and suddenly I am sending them off to learn to do just that. And to do it in a coldly methodical way with precision. I put the bench mark age at 12. There are boys who are younger who box but I am not a big fan of giving the knowledge of hurting without obtaining a bit more experience and judgment than the average 8, 9 or 10 year old possesses. Isaiah Sender should have started this past September but he wanted to play some team sports after school and I encouraged him to do so. Anything to put this day off.

I know I am not progressive nor have I ever claimed the slightest pretense of being. I tried to give my sons a value system which is at odds with most of what passes for ethical education in our schools. I tried to teach my sons to stand up for themselves and not count on the whims of others or the luck of happenstance for their protection. I tried to teach them never to start a fight, nor to hit a girl, a younger/smaller child or a child with an obvious physical limitation. I taught them that it is their moral duty to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves because that is the proper role befitting of a man.

Years ago when their father and I were young, he was at a crowded nightclub when a man started to shoot-up the club. I should have been there that night but I begged off at the last minute because I was tired and I had a bad feeling about going out that night.

While all the patrons tried to run or find cover their father charged directly into the path of the gunman. He took two bullets in the chest, one in the leg and one in the arm before the gunman was within his reach. Then he broke the man’s jaw, collarbone, leg, and nose before he finally collapsed due to his own injuries.

At the hospital that night, I asked him why he didn’t run for cover like everyone else. He turned to me and explained patiently and without fanfare, “K-T, he could have hurt or killed someone. I knew he couldn’t kill me as long as I came in low and bobbed my head to side to side. Everyone was too afraid. His gun was just too small. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hid and watch him hurt someone while I did nothing to stop it.” That’s when I knew I was dating a man, a real man, and I needed to not only take him seriously but accord him the respect due to a man.

I expect many things from my sons but most of my expectations are quite ordinary. I expect them to grow-up, finish school, earn a living, get married and raise their own children, but mostly I want them to grow-up to be moral righteous men. At all times and in all circumstances. And if, G-d forbid, they ever find them in a situation where a gunman is running a muck they will not run and hide while others die around them because they will know not only what it means to man-up, but they will possess the knowledge of how to man-up. No old man will have to die to show them how a man lives his life righteously and manly.

Chosing to stand against the storm

In the coming days more information will be released about the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech as we struggle to understand. I don’t have any answers or great insight into the whys of such things. I only know that the rain falls on all of us, but what touches me, in the midst of these great storms, is that there are the few who choose to make a stand for others. Ynet News carries news one such story.

WASHINGTON – Prof Liviu Librescu, a senior researcher and lecturer at Virginia Tech, is among the 32 people who were killed during a shooting rampage at the university Monday. His wife, Marlina, and two sons, Arieh and Joe, have already begun making arrangements for his burial in Israel.

One of Prof Librescu's students, Alec Calhoun, who was with him at the classroom when the shooting started, told AP that at about 9:05 am, he and classmates heard "a thunderous sound from the classroom next door, what sounded like an enormous hammer."

When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, they started flipping over desks for hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of the room. Calhoun said that just before he climbed out the window, he turned to look at the professor (Librescu), who had stayed behind to block the door.

Librescu's wife drove him to work on Monday, and he was killed about an hour later. His daughter-in-law Ayala, who is married to his son, Joe, told Ynet: "I heard he blocked the door of the classroom he was teaching… he must have realized that the murderer was approaching. He saved his students and was killed by gunshots."

"He has been teaching there for 20 years, and was a senior, world-renowned lecturer. He is the professor with the highest number of publications in the history of Virginia Tech. In the past, he taught at Tel Aviv University and the Technion," she added. Ayala said that her father-in-law was passionate about his research and a dedicated family man.

Prof Librescu and his wife are both Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1978. Librescu was an accomplished scientist in Romania, and the Communist regime had tried to prevent him from making aliyah to Israel. He was allowed to leave the country only after the Israeli prime minister at the time Menachem Begin appealed the matter to President Nicolae Ceausescu.

Save the bugs from stress!

I wrote earlier this week about feeling out of sync with the world I live in. This Globe and Mail story illustrates exactly what I mean.

VANCOUVER — The lizard lounged, the crickets chirped and the tarantulas perched on fuzzy legs at the edges of a turtle-shaped enclosure, oblivious to their role as stars in a battle of artistic freedom versus animal-welfare concerns.

That was yesterday. As of today, however, the creatures — part of an exhibit called Theatre of the World by renowned Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping — will be gone, removed after the Vancouver Art Gallery decided it could not comply with additional orders from the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals without compromising the artist's work.

The gallery had already made changes to address the agency's concerns about living conditions for reptiles and insects that were part of the exhibit, VAG chief curator Daina Augaitis said yesterday.

But when the B.C. SPCA said the tarantulas and scorpions had to go, the gallery bit back, concluding Saturday that it was unable to accommodate the latest order after consulting with the artist.

As she showed a visitor through the exhibit yesterday, Ms. Augaitis said the order focused on reducing stress for the creatures in the exhibit, a concept she admitted she wrestled with. “Someone's dog gets stressed when their owner goes to work,” Ms. Augaitis said. “To what extent do you go to alleviate stress for a millipede or a toad?”

The mindset of those who think there is a need to alleviate stress for a millipede or a toad is just beyond my ability to comprehend or understand. I must be a deeply flawed creation, as I think the natural environment of bugs and toads to be far harsher and more stressful than the exhibit, and it never occurred to me that there is a need to make their world less harsh or stressful.

Nationalization is the Solution

Nothing grates on my ears more when the catch phrase “right of return” is uttered in the context of a political discussion concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s just such a bogus concept designed to co-opt anyone other than Israel for responsibility of the current international plight of Palestinians refugees.

It's also a very one sided right. Apparently, it applies only to Arabs and we hear no cries demanding that the Arab governments who collectively expelled almost a million of Jewish citizens from their land, for being Jews, discuss even the possibility of return or "just compensation".

The Jerusalem Post is carrying a rather astounding editorial published in Kuwait of all places and written by a Saudi on the “Right of Return”:

In two recent articles in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa, Saudi columnist Yousef Nasser Al-Sweidan argues that the Palestinian refugees' "right of return" cannot be implemented, and that the only solution is for them to be naturalized in the countries where they currently reside, according to MEMRI - the Middle East Media Research Project.

In the first article, published on March 5 and titled "On the impossible [idea] of the right of return," Sweidan wrote: "The slogan 'right of return'... which is brandished by Palestinian organizations, is perceived as one of the greatest difficulties and as the main obstacle to renewing and advancing the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians based on the road map and a two-state solution.

"It is patently obvious that uprooting the descendants of the refugees from their current homes in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and other countries, and returning them to Israel, to the West Bank, and to Gaza is a utopian ideal and [a recipe for] anarchy. More than that - it is an idea that cannot be implemented, not only because it would upset the demographic [balance] in a dangerous and destructive manner and have [far-reaching] political, economic and social ramifications in such a small and constrained geographical area, but [mainly] because the return [of the refugees] stands in blatant contradiction to Israel's right as a sovereign [state], while the Palestinian Authority lacks the infrastructure to absorb such a large number of immigrants as long as the peace process... is not at its peak."

"Clearly, the refugee problem is mainly the result of cumulative mistakes made by the countries where [the refugees] live... such as Syria and Lebanon, which have isolated the refugees in poor and shabby camps lacking the most basic conditions for a dignified human existence.

"Instead of helping them to become fully integrated in their new society, they let them become victims of isolation and suffering... Later, the worst of all happened when Arab intelligence agencies used the Palestinian organizations as a tool for settling scores in internal Arab conflicts that probably have nothing to do with the Palestinians...

"The Israelis, on the other hand, were civilized and humane in their treatment of the thousands of Jewish refugees who had lost their property, homes and businesses in the Arab countries, and who were forced to emigrate to Israel after the 1948 war. The Israeli government received them, helped them, and provided them with all the conditions [they needed] to become integrated in their new society...

"The lies of the Syrian Ba'th regime, and its trading in slogans like 'right of return,' 'steadfastness,' 'resistance,' 'national struggle' and all the other ridiculous [slogans], are evident from the fact that, to this day, dozens of Palestinian families [remain] stranded in the desert on the Syrian-Iraqi border, because the Syrian regime refuses to let them enter its horrifying Ba'th republic and return to the Yarmouk [refugee] camp.

"The Arab countries where the Palestinians live in refugee camps must pass the laws necessary to integrate the inhabitants of these camps into society. "[In addition, they must] provide them with education and health services, and allow them freedom of occupation and movement and the right to own real estate, instead of [continuing] their policy of excluding [the refugees] and leaving the responsibility [of caring for them] to others, while marketing the impossible illusion of return [to Palestine]," Sweidan wrote, according to MEMRI.

Ah, finally a resemblance of sanity. I feel like I need to pinch myself. There is more – go read it here. But I cannot help but wonder how long before a Fatwa is issued against this Saudi?

So much for international solidarity

Ynet News is reporting that an alleged Al-Qaeda Palestinian terror group operating in the Gaza strip has beheaded BBC reporter Alan Johnston.:

BBC reporter Alan Johnston has been killed by an al-Qaeda affilated Palestinian organization, according to an internet statement obtained by Ynetnews. The statement was signed by the Palestinian Jihad and Tawheed Brigades, an organization named after an Iraqi al-Qaeda group.

Responding to the statement, the BBC said it is "aware of these reports -- but we have no independent verification of them. We are deeply concerned about what we are hearing -- but we stress, at this stage, it is rumour with no independent verification."In the message, the group said the British and Palestinian governments were responsible for Johnston's killing, and vowed to release a video of the execution.

"The whole world knows of our just cause in demanding the release of our prisoners, who are waiting under the fire of the occupation," the statement began. "Our demand was that all of those who are responsible for the journalist... release our prisoners who are being held in the prisons of the occupation," it continued.

"The whole world made so much noise about this foreign journalist, while it took no action over our thousands of prisoners," the declaration said. "Our objective was to broadcast a clear message, and we were surprised by the position of the Palestinian Authority, which attempted to hide the case as much as it could and to present the case in an untruthful manner, leading us unfortunately to kill the journalist so that our message is understood," the declaration continued. "We will disseminate a video in which we show his killing soon to the media outlets," the statement said.

"And we lay the responsibility on the the PA presidency, Palestinian government, and the British government for the blood of the its journalist son. And we confirm that our demands for the release of our prisoners in the occupation jails still stands. We will not relent until we release them all, free and dignified," the message added.

Meanwhile the Abductor General of the Palestinian Authority meets with BBC Director to reassure him that he has “credible evidence” that Alan Johnston is alive and well.

So you got to ask yourself why doesn’t the Abductor General just send in the security forces to extract him? I mean, really how big is the Gaza Strip? He can’t be that hard to find for PA security forces. It’s what the FBI, Scotland Yard or the RCMP would do, but no can do in the PA - not when the name of the game is extortion.

Out of Time

How can you tell its spring time in Toronto? The electrical power went off for about 5 minutes this morning. If the experience of the last two years is any kind of precedent to go by - this will be happening from here on in - on a twice weekly basis until the fall. It’s far too cold to run an air conditioner, so I suspect this has very little to do with over consumption of resources, and has all to do with the chronic mismanagement of the electrical company by the provincial authorities.

Only Isaiah Sender and I were awake. We sat on the sofa for a little chat and rage at the powers that be, who in their infinite political wisdom, had four years to resolve the chronic power outages and have yet to take any kind of definite action.

When the power came back on so did the television. I settled-in to watch a little Scooby-Doo with my son. I must have been around 7-8 years old when Scooby-Doo was first released as a weekend morning cartoon. I even remember reading the comics. I thought I knew all about Scooby-Doo, but this new Scooby-Doo no longer resemblances the cartoon of my childhood.

Today’s episode revolves around helping the poor misunderstood Wicca’s. There was even a nice long preachy bit concerning the history and persecution of Wicca’s. Today’s message; Wicca’s are our Hex-friends and earth-sisters.

A very old friend of mine dropped in earlier this week to visit me. We have been friends for years but have sort of drifted apart due to our lifestyles moving in separate ways in the last five years. It really started when she insisted on marrying a man who claimed to be a Druid.

Things haven’t been going very well lately so they decided a little ‘date time’ was in order to spruce up their marriage. Apparently, there are now Vampire Bars in Toronto where people go to drink their own blood but you have to bring your own syringe. I suppose is a kind of a small mercy that the bar does not supply the syringes. No doubt the blood drinkers are merely misunderstood too.

Next week’s date is to take place in some kind of S&M bar and she wants me to go with her and her husband. Apparently, she feels the need of my moral support and tried to bribe me with the promise of buying me an entire new outfit to wear to this place. For some unspoken reason she assumes I have nothing suitable to wear.

Besides, she tells me, my widowhood will never end unless I start going out again. I think I’d pass on the clothes and the bar, and choose to stay a widow for a lot longer. I rather like my style of conservatism and don’t think I really want a place among the liberal and tolerant.

Zionist Blood Melons of Death

For the last two years or so, I have blogged repeatedly about the Zionist death rays, bananas, grape juice, handshakes, toys, computers and even the two Zionist dogs - which had the effrontery to cross the Israeli border in an apparent infiltration attempt. But on the ball Lebanese policemen captured the dogs, and the security forces despatched the dogs to the Lebanese Army headquarter in Beirut for further investigation/interrogation.

Now I have blood melons to add to the list. Ynet News reports:

"Beware of Israeli melons infected with AIDS arriving in Saudi Arabia!" is the latest rumor being spread throughout Saudi Arabia like a wildfire. An SMS message being sent around the country this week said, "The Saudi Interior Ministry warns its citizens of a truck loaded with AIDS infected melons that Israel brought into the country via a 'ground corridor.'"

The Interior Minister's spokesman General Mansour al Turki responded to news of the message and made it clear to a-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper that the Ministry "did not issue any such announcement. This is just a rumor."

This is not the first rumor to spread through the country recently. Just last month another rumor had it that sweets containing carcinogenic flour were being sold in many stores. Al Turki urged the public to ignore such passing rumors, and said that the authorities were doing everything in their power to ensure the citizens' wellbeing. Head of the center for chemicals and toxins in Mecca, Dr Ahmad Elias also stressed that there was no truth to these rumors.

Besides the obvious lunacy, there should have been another sign to act as a major heads up for all concerned Saudis. Saudi Arabia has yet to end its boycott of all things Israeli; therefore, Zionist blood melons cannot be legally imported into the kingdom. Of course, if the Zionist Mossad dogs are running a black market in Blood Melons - all bets are off.

My attempt to get back into the loop

The last few days have been filled with much personal and boring kind of stuff, hence, little blogging. I’m trying to come back up to speed.

I see Don Imus has been fired. If it wasn’t for Larry King Live I wouldn’t even know who he is, and for the life of me it I don’t actually know what he said about a black women’s college basketball team. I gather it was reprehensible and despicable. Ok, whatever, but now that Imus has been duly roasted and pilloried can we send The Reverend Al “Tawana” Sharpton to perdition as well? For the life of me, I cannot understand why the media gives the Reverend the time of day - let alone airplay.

Kurt Vonnegut Junior has died at 84. There was a time when I read Vonnegut. I was about 14 or 15. His books made me laugh and I thought he was edgy. Like I said I was teenager and it was the 70’s. I haven’t been able to pick up a Vonnegut book in the last 20 years and been able to get past the first chapter. His books now bore me senseless. So much for the voice of a generation.


The Honourable Belinda Stronach has decided to quit politics. I got to hand it to Stronach. She found a way to be referred to as honourable publicly - despite her less than stellar moral conduct.

Quick Hits

I have a rather busy morning so only a few short links.

Israel rejects the Palestinian list of prisoners. Surprise, surprise.

Hezbollah is rearming and reading itself for a new summer war with Israel. Surprise, surprise.

Israeli court appointed lawyers for Hezbollah detainees from last summer’s conflict argue that their clients should be treated as prisoners of war rather than enemy combatants. So maybe there’s some truth in a joke that was going around last summer – Hezbollah is Lebanon and the rest are just tourists.

The new Palestinian Fatah-Unity government has appointed a new Minister of Tourism. I can't wait to see the brochures promoting the highlights of a tour of the Gaza Strip - and will it include guided tours of the tunnels? The jokes just write themselves with that one, but its got to be a thankless job.

Robbing Dov, Ruth, Eli, Hannah, Ariel, Shlomo, Shoshanna, Yitzhak, et al to pay Mohammed

Israeli Corporal Gilad Schalit’s kidnappers have allegedly sent the Israelis a shopping list of who’s who of convicted Palestinian terrorists to exchange for Corporal Schalit. The Jerusalem Post carries this report:

Initifada leader Marwan Barghouti is among the hundreds of prisoners the captors of IDF Cpl. Gilad Schalit want freed in a swap, the Palestinian Authority information minister said Monday. Schalit's captors handed the names of Palestinian prisoners they want freed to Israel several days ago, through Egyptian mediators. Little is known about the list, including the number of names on it.

However, PA Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti confirmed Monday that two of the most senior Palestinian prisoners, Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Saadat, are on the list. The information minister and the prisoner are distant relatives. Marwan Barghouti, seen as a potential successor to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, is serving five consecutive life terms for his role in shooting attacks that killed four Israelis and a Greek monk. Saadat heads the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. "The list of the prisoners we want released very soon includes the names of Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Saadat, and many other people who had been there for a long time," Mustafa Barghouti said.

According to reports in the Palestinian media earlier Monday, Schalit's captors were also demanding the release of Hassan Salameh as part of any prisoner swap. Salameh is responsible for planning several suicide attacks against Israel that were carried out as a response to an IDF assassination in 1996, Israel Radio reported Monday. Hamas is also demanding the release of Fuad Shubaki, a high-ranking Fatah official and the paymaster of the 2001 Karine-A affair, during which the IDF intercepted a Gaza-bound Iranian weapons ship. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Al-Ayyam newspaper reported that a planned deal for Schalit's release will be implemented in three stages.

Let me summarize. The really hardcore bad guys with multiple buckets of blood on their hands go first. Then Schalit will be turned over to the Egyptian government and be held by the Egyptian authorities until the Palestinian terrorists with only a bucket of Israeli blood in each hand are released by Israel. I would have thought for the Egyptian authorities to agree to hold Schalit as hostage would be at least one violation of the Camp David Peace accord but what do I really know? Anyways, the Egyptians will turn Schalit over to Israel after the release of the second group. Within two months of Schalit's release to Israel, the terrorist with only one bucket of blood will be released by Israel. That is, if you can believe in the good faith of the Palestinian terrorists who are allegingly holding Schalit captive.

Unlike the 15 British naval personnel held captive by Iran there has been absolutely no communication by any third party showing Schalit alive and relatively well. Neither the Red Cross nor any other human rights organization has been allowed to communicate with Corporal Schalit - even briefly. There hasn’t even been a Palestinian equivalent of the Iranian home movies showing Corporal Schalit alive. Not one letter penned in Corporal Schalit’s hand has been delivered to either his parents or Israeli authorities - nor released to the international media. Media reports in the immediate aftermath suggested that the IDF believed Schalit was seriously wounded, perhaps grievously, in the attack launched by Popular Resistance Committee. One needs to be asking why no proof has even been offered that Schalit is still alive.

Looking at the who’s who of Palestinian terror elite who are to be released in the first stage, I would suggest it would be safe to conclude that the Palestinian’s are going for the gold the first round out. One must ask why? G-d forbid, but is this the proof Schalit is dead? Are the Palestinian giving their wish list with the heavy hitters knowing that they cannot deliver Schalit to Egypt for the round two?

Or is subterfuge at work here? The Palestinians know Schalit is dead, and cannot produce a living Schalit to the Egyptian (let alone Israeli) authorities, so they develop this incredibly contentious list and conditions which no Israeli government in good conscience could agree to adhering; thereby, claiming a propaganda victory. And if by chance Olmert is the fool everyone claims he is and he agrees to the conditions – then the Palestinians will get a few hundred of their most hardcore killers out in the first round before their deception can be documented. And really, what can Israel do but batten down the hatches and prepare for more civilian deaths?

Shoshana Amos, Aviel Atash, Vitaly Brodsky, Tamara Dibrashvilli, Raisa Forer, Larisa Gomanenko, Denise Hadad, Tatiana Kortchenko, Rosita Lehman, Karine Malka, Nargiz Ostrovsky, Maria Sokolov, Roman Sokolovsky, Tiroayent Takala, Eliyahu Uzan, Emmanuel Yosef (Yosefov) Senior Warrant Officer Haim Alfasi, Chief Warrant Officer Yaakov Ben-Shabbat, Cpl. Mazi Grego, Capt. Yael Kfir, Cpl. Felix Nikolaichuk, Sgt. Yonatan Peleg, Sgt. Efrat Schwartzman, Prosper Twito, Sgt. Liron Siboni, Dr. David Appelbaum, Nava Appelbaum, David Shimon Avizadris, Shafik Kerem, Alon Mizrahi, Gila Moshe and Yehiel (Emil) Tubol, Avraham (Albert) Balhasan, Rose Boneh, Hava Hannah (Anya) Bonder, Anat Darom, Viorel Octavian Florescu, Natalia Gamril, Yechezkel Isser Goldberg, Baruch (Roman) Hondiashvili, Dana Itach, Mehbere Kifile and Eli Zfira

These are the names of Israelis who were brutally murdered since 2003 by Palestinian terrorists who were first released in prisoner exchanges. What is missing are the names of those wounded and maimed in those same multiple attacks. I suggest everyone read Caroline Glick’s latest column in the Jerusalem Post - The Next Grand Bargain before you read any more of this blog posting.

But I will offer this quote taken directly the end of her column:
Schalit was kidnapped by a joint Hamas-Fatah force. The government could place sanctions such as travel bans on PA Chairman and Fatah terror chief Mahmoud Abbas and PA Prime Minister and Hamas terror chief Ismail Haniyeh and their associates. So too, the government could order the Prisons Service to prevent jailed terrorists from talking to reporters, politicians and European diplomats and so end the anomalous state of affairs whereby convicted murderers like arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti are allowed to engage in psychological warfare against Israeli society and serve as power brokers in Palestinian society from prison.

Since last summer, the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government has taken no steps that would lead either the Palestinians or Hizbullah to view Schalit, Regev and Goldwasser's illegal captivity as a burden. Rather, like their bosses in Teheran, the terrorists have all benefited from their criminal behavior.

Because of the fecklessness of our leaders, we lost a war we should have won and our hostages, who soldiers like Nadav Baeloha heroically gave their lives to free, have remained in captivity.

As Hizbullah, Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians show daily with their escalating saber-rattling, our leaders' continued incompetence since the war has brought us ever closer to a new war. Now, through their cowardly and unnecessary genuflections to our enemies, made under the preening cover of feigned concern for the lives of our hostages they have done nothing to free, Olmert and his associates place the lives of every one of us in danger.

While Glick offers viable suggestions on what the Kadima coalition could have done, I would go a few steps further than even Glick, and suggest its long past the time for Israeli society to openly debate the death penalty for anyone convicted of 2 or more multiple deaths arising from any politically motivated terror attack on civilians. The Palestinians have a long bloodied history of local and international terror attacks launched with the sole motivation of freeing Palestinian terrorists from jail. Let’s just start at Munich and work our way forward to Schalit.

I am not naïve, nor do I believe that by executing killers will deter the terror masters but it could substantially reduce the chance of any future Israeli government being held hostage by terrorists. It would also effectively stop the practise of using murderers as legitimate currency in which to meet any ransom demand issued by terrorists. Oh, and before anyone suggests it; I would be more than willing to apply for the job as state executioner. It’s the one government job in which I don’t believe my poor command of Hebrew would negatively affect my job performance.

Fifth Column

A major terrorist attack was thwarted in Israel reports Ynet News:

A major suicide attack on Tel Aviv was prevented this Passover, as Shin Bet and IDF forces arrested 19 Hamas members in the West Bank city of Qalqilya for planning to detonate a car bomb containing some 220 lbs of explosives, it was cleared for publication on Tuesday.

Investigations revealed that a would-be suicide bomber, a holder of an Israeli ID obtained through family unification, had already reached the center of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area with the vehicle, but for unknown reasons did not carry out the attack and returned to Qalqilya, where the bomb accidentally exploded.

"The discovery of this ring shows that Hamas is actually beginning to realize its strengthening in the form of attacks," said a security source. Following a recent wave of arrests of Hamas members in Qalqilya, it became apparent that the organization's men in the city were working toward committing attacks against Israel's home front as soon as possible, after a period of re-strengthening and building up abilities. The arrests were carried out before Passover, in order to ensure a safe holiday. The IDF and Shin Bet are currently continuing investigations in an effort to thwart further terror activity.

The investigations showed that the group was plotting to carry out a number of different attacks in Israel in addition to this car bomb. Defense establishment sources explained that the bomber's ID allowed him easy access in and out of Israel, which enabled him to collect information in the central district, and enabled the group to use his car which had an Israeli license plate.

Monitoring Hamas, the defense establishment noticed that from November 2006, the organization has been concentrating on regaining strength, in the form of rearmament, training, and preparing attacks that could be implemented on short notice.The organization has also been concentrating on upgrading its abilities throughout the West Bank, with the help of Iran and Syria.

Information obtained in the investigations showed that Hamas has completed the phase of building power and has moved on to the implementation phase, which includes attacks on Israel's home front. According to the information, the group is still working on planning the execution of major attacks in the near future.
Qalqilya's location and its proximity to central cities in Israel, means there is great mobility in and out of the area, and holders of Israeli IDs are allowed to enter and leave the city freely so as not to harm the life fabric of its residents.

In height of the infatida circa 2002, the Israeli Knesset passed a marriage law that barred Israeli citizens from sponsoring spouses from hostile/enemy state to live in Israel. The Israeli state recognized that hostile enemies of the state were subverting the family unification laws and deliberately marrying Arab Israeli citizens in order to obtain the necessary travel papers to move freely within the Israeli state to launch attacks against Israeli civilians. Under the 2002 marriage law, Israel will not prevent a citizen from marrying a spouse from a hostile/enemy state but there will not be a family unification in Israel except at the discretion of the minister of the immigration portfolio.

In other words, an Israeli could marry a Canadian and sponsor their Canadian spouse to live in Israel but an Israeli citizen could not marry a Palestinian from the West Bank or the Gaza Strip and sponsor that spouse to live in Israel. There is nothing stopping the Israeli citizen from leaving Israel to live in another place with their spouse.

Internationally, the Israelis have been soundly condemned (see this Independent article for background) but this attack highlights the very danger to security which Israeli citizens face under family reunification plans. If you were an Israeli, you need to ask yourself; how many of your family members would you be willing to sacrifice in order for Farrah and Mohammad to live together in Israel?

Let the Bill Die Stephen Harper

Let’s just file this under an extraordinary bad idea (taken from the Winnipeg Free Press):

OTTAWA -- The RCMP has urged the Harper government to reintroduce a controversial bill that would force Internet service providers to turn over personal information on subscribers, arguing the lack of such legislation has already had "serious consequences" for investigations, newly released documents show.

The former Liberal government introduced a law, called the modernization of investigative techniques act, that would have ve made it easier for law-enforcement agencies to intercept Internet and wireless communications.

The "lawful access" law, as it was better known, also would have compelled telecommunications service providers such as Bell Canada and Rogers Communications to disclose the name and addresses of subscribers to authorities upon request. The bill was introduced in November 2005, but didn't pass before the last election. However, the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised to revive it, and documents obtained by Canwest News Service under the Access to Information Act confirm officials have been laying the groundwork.

Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service can already seek the authority to wiretap private communications through the Criminal Code, CSIS Act and other laws. But the laws were written before the emergence of the Internet and wireless technologies such as mobile phones, and in many cases the industry hasn't developed the technology to intercept such communications. The lawful access bill would have effectively forced companies to build intercept capabilities into their networks.

At present, authorities must seek a court warrant before asking service providers to cough up personal information. But under the lawful access bill, they would not have to seek judicial approval.

And rightly so, especially in light of the RCMP’s track record with ethical issues. I fail to understand why the RCMP cannot make their case in a timely matter before a justice.

Twist of a Screw

Since the disengagement from the Gaza Strip kidnappings have been an ongoing affair. One could even characterize it as a growth industry. Last week, I posted on a protest by Palestinian journalists for the release of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston. Today the Jerusalem Post is reporting that Palestinian Authority security forces are examining this possibility:

Palestinian security forces are investigating the possibility that missing BBC correspondent Alan Johnston staged his own kidnapping, an Arab newspaper reported Monday.

According to London-based Arab language newspaper, Al-Hayat, Johnston staged his capture by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip after he received notification from his superiors that he would be forced to leave his position in the near future. Johnston, said the report, waited 15 minutes for his "captors" to pick him up, and has been held willingly in an undisclosed location for over a month.

Really, I have no opinion on whether or not Johnston staged his own kidnapping except to say that nothing under heaven is out of the realm of possibility in the Gaza Strip. But it does give the Palestinian Authority a rather too convenient out and a rather valid excuse to do nothing.

Flashpoint - Hebron

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Israeli Defense Minister, Amir Peretz, has come to the conclusion that the best course of action is for the IDF to evict the Jews from Beit HaShalom house by April 19th.

A contentious Hebron home will be evacuated by April 19, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said Friday. Sneh told Army Radio that entering the home, which is on the road that links Kiryat Arba with the Cave of the Patriarchs, required permission from the security establishment, irrespective of the legality of the purchase. "The choice of the location for this home is not a coincidence," added Sneh. "It is not in immediate vicinity to the other settlers homes in Hebron." Sneh said that it was part of the "strategy of these people" to change the circumstances inside Hebron.

Security establishment officials were estimating that thousands of police and soldiers would be required for the evacuation operation if a deal was not struck with the settlers to voluntarily evacuate the building. Defense Minister Amir Peretz announced Thursday night that in two weeks he would remove the settlers who on March 19 moved into the new four-story building.

MK Effi Eitam (NRP-NU) said that Peretz had made the decision out of political considerations. "It is plain to see that the defense minister is not acting against the house in Hebron but against the house he is sitting in - the government and the coalition," Eitam told Army Radio on Friday morning. "It is a house which was bought legally," he blasted, adding, "This is real provocation."

Peretz's announcement caught the settlers in the apartment building by surprise. They had assumed that their presence in the 3,500-square meter stone structure was permissible, since, they said, they had legally purchased the structure for $700,000.

In March, the IDF provided security for the entry of the settlers to the structure, located in an area populated by Palestinians. Still, Peretz said on Thursday the settlers' presence was unauthorized because they had not sought permission from his office to enter the building.

Around the time the settlers moved in, the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, an observer group, said in a press release that the IDF had informed it that the settlers had entered the building. The army, according to TIPH, said, "The settlers bought the building from the Palestinian owner, and had a document to prove ownership."

A source in the Defense Ministry said that while the sale appeared to be legal, this was immaterial since the important issue was how the settlers entered the building. Peretz, the source said, took a "principled decision to evacuate those who had invaded the home." He did so after consulting with Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, legal advisers and other security officials, said the source. Authorities are now looking for the proper legal tools to evacuate the settlers, the Defense Ministry source said. Peretz said government policy should not be determined by the settlers' purchasing a building, but rather that "it is the government's policy that should determine the purchasing."

I do have to snicker at the suggestion from the Labour party MK's that the eviction is really an "evacuation". Talk about an abuse of language. And what an extraordinary thought that the sale and legal title to a property is immaterial. Peretz’s red roots are showing rather remarkably.

Arutz Sheva has more:

The joy was somewhat doused Thursday night with the announcement by Defense Minister Amir Peretz of Labor that he plans to evacuate the Jews from the building. He explained that even if the sale is legal, the residents had failed to obtain permission from the defense establishment before moving in, as is required in Judea and Samaria. Labor MK Ephraim Sneh seconded Peretz's position.

Peretz has been under fire within his Labor Party for not evacuating Jewish outposts in Judea and Samaria as he promised. His decision was thus greeted by many political figures (see below) as merely serving his own political needs. By Friday, however, it appeared likely that Peretz would have a hard time implementing his decision. MK Effie Eitam said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told him last week that he would not allow Peretz to evacuate the building. "If the building in Hevron was acquired legally," Olmert reportedly told Eitam, "I won't let Peretz evacuate it." Eitam said he met with the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Roni Bar-On (Kadima) on the issue.

"Evacuating this building," Eitam said he told Olmert, "would be against rules of natural justice and the legitimate rights of Jews to acquire property and to live in their homes everywhere in the Land of Israel."

In addition, Kadima MK Otniel Schneller said that most of his party colleagues in the Knesset intend to block Peretz’s "politically-based" plan to evacuate Peace House. Kadima Knesset faction leader Avigdor Yitzchaki also expressed his support for the Jewish residents of Peace House in a visit Thursday afternoon, together with Likud MK Gidon Saar.

"Peretz must not be allowed to throw the whole country into a tizzy because of his own personal political considerations," MK Eitam said, in reference to Peretz's all-but-lost bid to retain his leadership of the Labor Party. Labor will hold party primaries for the leadership late next month.
(…)
Pensioners Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan, head of the Pensioners Party and a veteran defense figure, told Arutz-7's Uzi Baruch today that he supports the Jewish presence in the new building. "The building must remain in Jewish hands," Eitan said, "because it is in territory that is totally Israel. In 1996, an agreement was signed [giving away most of Hevron to the Palestinian Authority - ed.] that essentially divides Hevron [into Jewish and Arab areas]. That agreement stipulates clearly that the road between the Machpelah Cave and Kiryat Arba remains under Israeli control - and therefore this building must remain Israeli."

The Deputy Mayor of Beit Shemesh, Shalom Lerner, visited the new building on Friday and promised support for the residents against Defense Minister Peretz's stated intention to throw them out. Meeting with those currently living in the building, Lerner said, "The residents of Beit Shemesh [40 kilometers northwest of Hevron - ed.] encourage and strengthen you in your efforts to fortify the Jewish presence in Hevron, and they will stand with you here and struggle against any attempt to evict you. Attempts to throw you out stand in opposition to natural justice and the position of most Israeli citizens. I will call upon the residents of Beit Shemesh to join the struggle for this building, so that Peretz - who failed in protecting our security - won't fail in Hevron as well."

Needless to say, the Jewish community of Hebron is prepared to fight the eviction and will appeal to the Israeli high court. The Yesha Council is now calling for the rescinding of the eviction order. And as far as I can determine, Jordanian and Palestinian Authority are still holding under arrest the former Arab former owners.

No Israeli Peace Partners for Palestinians

The Jerusalem Post is reporting the new Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister doesn’t believe Israeli is ready for serious peace negotiations:

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is not ready for "serious negotiations" with the Palestinians and other Arab leaders on efforts to forge peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian foreign minister said Wednesday.

"I believe that Mr. Prime Minister Olmert is not ready to enter into real negotiations, serious negotiations with the Arabs, with the Palestinian side," Ziad Abu Amr told reporters after meeting with Austrian counterpart Ursula Plassnik. "And I also believe, I can say here, that this time we don't have an Israeli partner anymore," he said.

Abu Amr described as "clear, strong and honest" a peace initiative relaunched by the Arab League last week, and he said Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was prepared to meet with Olmert at any time.

Meanwhile, in other news, the Jerusalem Post carries these reports:

Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Mashaal denied on Saturday that there had been any change in his organization's policies, and declared that Hamas would neither abandon "armed resistance" nor agree to give up an "inch of Palestinian land."

Then there is the current security situation in the Gaza Strip:

The PA cabinet held an emergency meeting in Gaza City on Saturday to discuss ways of ending the state of lawlessness in PA-controlled territories, as anarchy grew in the Strip. Interior Minister Hani Kawassmeh, who is formally in charge of the PA security forces, presented the cabinet with a new "security plan" aimed at restoring law and order. Contrary to expectations, the cabinet did not take any decision on the plan. Instead, it decided to hold another meeting next week to discuss ways of implementing it.

Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t make a brief mention the latest kidnapping victim.
Or how Internet café owners in the Gaza Strip have made directed appeals to Palestinian security forces to stop attacks on their businesses. But remember Israeli is not a serious peace partner. And just to point out that the madness is not contained in to the Gaza Strip alone. Two Israeli soldiers were stabbed in Hebron today:

Two Border Policemen were stabbed near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Sunday afternoon. One soldier suffered moderate wounds after he was stabbed in the back and the other was stabbed in his hand, sustaining only minor wounds.

MDA teams arrived on the scene and gave the wounded soldiers preliminary treatment. They were then taken to Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem for further treatment. The attacker, a 17-year-old Palestinian entered the site through the Palestinian side of the cave, was shot and wounded in his leg. He was also taken to Ein Kerem hospital.

Stabbed in the back, yep, it sure sounds like a well-nurtured culture of peace…. Of course, these are just the reports in a 24 hour news cycle. Personally, I suspect the Palestinians are overall too busy killing each other to notice if Israel is a serious peace partner or not.

Pet Food Recall

I am going to go on record and ask probably the most obviously stupid question but I have yet to hear anyone ask or even anyone report indirectly the merest hints of any possibly explanation. Just put it down as my natural tendency to be exceedingly dense.

Why are North American pet food manufacturers importing wheat gluten from China rather than locally produced wheat gluten from North America? Is there a shortage of wheat or wheaten gluten produced in North America?

The Curse of the Gaza Strip

Apparently, the Palestinian Authority is worried that the UN will declare the Gaza Strip a “dangerous zone” which will result in the evacuation of all international aid workers reports the Jerusalem Post:

Palestinian Authority officials on Thursday expressed fear that the United Nations may formally declare the Gaza Strip a dangerous zone - a move that would result in the evacuation of the remaining foreign nationals from the area and drastically hamper international humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. PA security sources told The Jerusalem Post that 25 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip last month in internal fighting. Another four were killed in the West Bank, the sources added.

"We're moving very quickly toward such a scenario," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, member of the PLO executive committee and a close aide to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. "The Gaza Strip is full of thugs and gangsters who are responsible for the ongoing anarchy. Soon the Gaza Strip may be declared a dangerous zone, which means that all international organizations would have to leave."

The UN has yet to issue any formal statement to such effect.

Chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat warned that a "dangerous zone" declaration would increase the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and called on the PA security forces to start working to end the state of lawlessness and anarchy. "The Gaza Strip has become worse than Somalia," a prominent human rights activist in Gaza City told the Post. "Thousands of gunmen continue to roam the streets and the new government hasn't done anything to restore law and order. Every day you hear horror stories about people who are killed and wounded. The situation is really intolerable."

Muhammad Dahlan, who was recently appointed PA National Security Adviser, said it was time to admit that a "curse has hit" the Gaza Strip. "Anyone who does not admit that there's a curse in the Gaza Strip does not know what he's talking about," he said. Dahlan expressed concern over the wave of kidnappings in Gaza, noting that a local engineer who was abducted several months ago was still being held by his captors. He said that the National Security Council was now preparing a security plan that would end the state of anarchy in the PA-controlled areas. "The Palestinian security establishment needs to undergo major surgery," he added. "The situation is catastrophic and many young men prefer to work for clans and not the security forces."

Dahlan met earlier with the British consul-general in Jerusalem, Richard Makepeace, and briefed him on the PA's efforts to release kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was snatched by masked gunmen in Gaza City three weeks ago. Hassan Khraisheh, deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that the commanders of the PA security forces knew where Johnston was being held, but were doing nothing to release him. "What's the point in having 85,000 security officers if they can't free a foreign journalist who has been held in the Gaza Strip for three weeks?" he asked.

Apparently, there have been 46 kidnappings in the last month in the Gaza Strip alone. But Dahlan has brought up an interesting point but offers no explanation - just why is it that young men prefer to work for the clans rather than the official security forces?

Duck Tales

Of course if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck or quacks like a duck it could still be a dog – abet a highly unlike one. But if there is one constant in life I have learned - it is this - an Ass is always an Ass – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Mea culpa. I should have realized that synagogues hire on/off-duty police officers with their police cars and uniforms to act as overpaid parking attendants. Like doesn’t every religious group in Canada do it? Why, I bet the United Church will be hiring at least a whole police division to run their church parking lots across the city on their high holy days.

Furthermore, the alleged hiring of city police at Jewish religious institutions has absolutely nothing to do with the firebombing of Jewish schools or synagogues, the torching of synagogues, the vandalism or bomb/death threats issued against the various Jewish communities across Canada in the last five years.

Absolutely nothing. I take it back.

Share the joy and pass the tissue

My youngest son, Isaiah Sender, is the most generous of all my children. No, really. There is very little he will not share with me. In fact, he brought home one of the nastiest cold bugs I have seen with years. Was he content to share in the joy by himself? No. He did everything in his power to share the experience with me. For example, he waited until the exact moment I was walking by to start sneezing for maximum spread effect. Would he go in his room and sleep off the virus huddled under his blankets like the other two do? No. He stuck to me like glue. At one point, he crawled into my bed in the middle of the night to cough all over me.

Last night The Last Amazon discovered just how sick I really am. She told me I should go to bed, but I thought why should I - as long as there still remains the chance that I can still pass along the joy?

Leopards spots don’t change

I bet you won’t see this reported in the Toronto Star. A Fatah commander claims there will be no ceasefire reports Ynet News:

A top commander of Fatah's military wing took responsibility on Thursday for a bomb attack against Israeli soldiers in Jenin, vowing to carry out similar attacks against the Israeli army in the near future.

Zakariya Zubeidi, a commander in Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who is wanted by Israel for a series of terror attacks, said his group would not heed calls by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to halt attacks against the Israeli army. "There will be no calm between our group and the IDF even if Abu Mazen declares so," said Zubeidi, using Abbas's nom de guerre.

In Thursday's attack, gunmen detonated a bomb under a passing military vehicle and opened fire at Israeli soldiers. No one was injured in the attack. "There is no room to speak about a ceasefire. We will continue to fight the occupation and to fight the IDF as long as they enter our cities," Zubeidi said.

Not much wiggle room there.

We are not immune

I first read about a homemade bomb exploding at a Jewish community centre in Montreal in Ynet News. But I did find the Globe and Mail account:

Police are investigating after a small, homemade explosive device detonated late Tuesday night outside a Jewish community centre in Montreal. They say it's too soon to describe the explosion, which left soot on the door and doorstep, as a hate-motivated crime. No one was hurt.

A Montreal police spokeswoman said employees inside the Ben Weider Jewish Community Centre heard an explosion at about 11:15 p.m. No witnesses have come forward, but the centre did have surveillance cameras, and tapes are being reviewed by police. The centre had not received any threats before.

"We're not ruling out [a hate crime]," said Constable Lynne Labelle of the Montreal police. "But we're waiting to get as much information as possible."
The centre was closed yesterday for the Jewish holiday of Passover, which began at sundown on Monday and ends at sundown next Tuesday.

Hate crime, no – really; it’s probably an act of solidarity for all those repressed by the Elders of this world.

A few years ago my daughter had to have an operation at a small private hospital in a suburb of Toronto. The surgery had to be scheduled on Yom Kippur. As I traveled to the hospital on the day of the surgery, I passed by two synagogues which were located within 5 minutes of the hospital. What shocked me was the visible police presence in this affluent garden community. A minimum of 2 police cars stationed at the driveways of each synagogue. At the time, I thought how sad that it has come to this in Canada of all places. Now I think, thank G-d.

The Suits Up

Arutz Sheva reports an interesting civil suit brought by a settlement community against the second largest Israeli daily for libel:

(IsraelNN.com) The residents of Maaleh Rechavam, a new community established in the Judean desert southeast of Jerusalem, have filed a libel suit against Maariv, over a recent report appearing in the popular daily newspaper.

According to the suit, Maariv erroneously published that Maaleh Rechavam was established on "private Palestinian lands," in the language of the report. After requests that the newspaper publish a retraction were refused, according to Drori Bar-Levav, general secretary of the community, it was decided to sue Maariv.

Lawyers representing 14 residents of Maaleh Rechavam filed suit with the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Sunday. The defendants named in the case are Amnon Dankner, Maariv's editor-in-chief, journalist Uri Yablonka, and Maariv's publishing corporation. According to the suit, the representation of the community as it appeared in a May 2006 article by Yablonka defamed them, and negatively impacted Maaleh Rechavam residents' businesses and relations with their Arab neighbors. Residents are seeking 108,500 shekels ($26,100) in damages, as well as a public correction stating that "the community of Maaleh Rechavam is situated exclusively on state lands."
(…)
In addition to the direct damages cited, the residents further claim, "Presentation of the community as sitting on private Palestinian lands may lead to hesitation to settle in the region, due to the double concern of the state evacuating the area and/or the eviction of the residents through a civil suit filed by owners of the land."

The suit concludes, "Misleading publicity such as this may aid those interested in uprooting the community and destroying the fruit of the residents' labors, in which they invested much of their personal funds."

There has been no group more demonized that the so called settlers in Land of Israel. It is nice to see in recent days that they are fighting back. I wish them well with this suit, and if this community is successful; there always remains the possibility of making left-wing extremist groups like Peace Now accountable for some of their more outrageous and erroneous claims.

So who are you going to believe.

The Jerusalem Post carries this rather remarkable example of doublespeak by the new Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister:

Hamas is undergoing a massive transformation and is "ready to change," the Palestinian Authority foreign minister said in an interview published in a French newspaper Monday. Ziad Abu Amr, on a three-day visit to France, met Monday with French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy and was holding talks Tuesday with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. Speaking to the French daily Le Monde, Abu Amr said he hoped the visit would yield both financial aid and political support for the Palestinian's new coalition government

Abu Amr, an independent, said he thought Hamas was willing to change its ideology in order to remain a political player. "I must admit I'm both surprised and impressed with the speed and the magnitude of Hamas's transformation," he is quoted as saying. He cited Hamas's willingness to accept a future Palestinian state contained within territory Israel occupied in the Six Day War as an example of the movement's ideological shift. "One year ago, the movement would never have accepted a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders," he said. "When things move with such speed in one year, it makes me think the movement is ready to change."

And in the same online issue of the Jerusalem Post is this contrast interview is given by the Israeli OC Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin:

Iran, Syria and Hizbullah are preparing their defenses for a war in the summer, and they are more worried about an attack by the US than from Israel, OC Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin told the cabinet on Sunday. Israel was following these moves very carefully, Yadlin said, and needed to be careful its actions were not misinterpreted, leading to a miscalculation by the other side.

Hamas has recently stepped up its terrorist attacks and, according to the IDF, was behind last week's shooting attack along the Gaza security fence in which an Israeli was moderately wounded. Due to the increased arms smuggling from Sinai to the Gaza Strip by Hamas, the IDF has drawn up plans for an broad incursion there.

Somehow, I think the smart money would be to place a bet on Yadlin's intelligence to win.

The other British hostage

The kidnapping of the British naval personnel by Iran has overshadowed the case of BBC correspondent Alan Johnson; who was kidnapped in the Gaza Strip shortly before the Iranians acted. The Jerusalem Post carries this report which contains two interesting twists. The first one is the suggestion from security officials from the Palestinian Authority on who might have played a role in that kidnapping:

PA security officials told the Post that they were looking into the possibility that some Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip may have been involved in the kidnappings. They claimed that local journalists have been trying to keep foreign journalists away from the Gaza Strip for fear that they would take their jobs.

"We have evidence that at least in one case Palestinian journalists were involved in a kidnapping," the officials said. "Before accusing the Palestinian Authority, the journalists should launch an investigation into what's happening in their ranks."

In response to the kidnapping the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has called for a three day protest boycotting the reporting of any news from the Gaza Strip:

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate on Saturday called on the local and foreign media to boycott the Palestinian Authority in response to the kidnapping of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston in Gaza City three weeks ago.

Meanwhile, a prominent human rights activist in the Gaza Strip expressed fear that the kidnapping of foreign journalists was designed to "prevent the world from seeing what's really happening here." It's obvious, the activist said, "that those behind the kidnappings want to have a monopoly over the news coverage in the Gaza Strip. They don't want the world to see the anarchy on the streets and the infighting between Fatah and Hamas. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in achieving their goal because most foreign journalists are today afraid to come to the Gaza Strip."

Naim Toubasi, chaimran of the syndicate, told The Jerusalem Post that the boycott would begin on Monday and continue for three days. "We have called on all journalists to refarin from covering any news about the Palestinian Authority, inlcuding the government, to protest against the continued abduction of the BBC reporter," he said.

Ironically, no group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of Alan Johnson.

Iranians play Zionist blues with Russians News Agency singing back-up vocals

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that the Russians believe the US is prepared to strike by April 6th.

The United States will be ready to launch a missile attack on Iran's nuclear facilities as soon as early this month, perhaps "from 4 a.m. until 4 p.m. on April 6," according to reports in the Russian media on Saturday.

According to Russian intelligence sources, the reports said, the US has devised a plan to attack several targets in Iran, and an assault could be carried out by launching missiles from fighter jets and warships stationed in the Persian Gulf.
Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted a security official as saying, "Russian intelligence has information that the US Armed Forces stationed in the Persian Gulf have nearly completed preparations for a missile strike against Iranian territory." The Russian Defense Ministry rejected the claims of an imminent attack as "myths." There was no immediate response from Washington.

Personally, I am firmly in the myth camp, but the Russian news agency isn’t the only one fearmongering. Yesterday, Iran was singing the Zionists are Coming Blues with a twist and warning to the Arab world:

The reports come as the Iranian chief of staff, Hassan Fayrouz Abadi, was quoted on Saturday by Iran's Fars news agency warning leaders of Arab countries that Israel plans to open a "suicidal attack" on its neighbors this summer, to "prevent the withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq and the area." "I warn the dear leaders and Muslim brothers in the neighboring countries of the occupied territories that this suicidal attack of the Zionists is threatening them," he said. The countries in danger, he said, were "Lebanon and Syria, and later Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia."