I just got off the computer with Tom Paine, my boss over at Shire Network News. He got me to sign up for Google Talk, and we just had an international conversation via our computers (with microphone and headsets), and it cost us nothing. Well, nothing above the cost of our computers and broadband connections.

Voiceover IP is way cool.

By the way, if you have an idea for a podcast, you can suggest it before my deadline (gracefully pushed back due to the holiday). I have a few ideas, but nothing firm. Anything you want to hear me talk about?

I forget. Is he Abu Mazen, Abu Merang, or Abu-bu?

Whatever he is called, Mahmoud Abbas has declared that cutoff in aid to palestinians “illegal.” In what universe, Abu-bu?

AMMAN: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas conferred yesterday with Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit and labelled the Israeli boycott of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the cut-off of financial aid to the Palestinians as “illogical and illegal.”

“The siege of the Palestinian people and withholding assistance from them is illogical, illegal and impractical,” Abbas told reporters before leaving for an official visit to Morocco.

Illegal. So, which is illegal? The “siege”? Withholding assistance? Or both? Because the last time I checked, there is no law that states, “The world must give the palestinians money and aid no matter what.”

Wow, talk about a sense of entitlement. And they call Israelis arrogant? I think not.

So I see this AP article, headlined “Passover Goes High-Tech in Israel,” and I think, well, let’s take a look, because I have no idea how Passover and high-tech would go together. So I read the article. It leads with the heavy security Israel is taking to prevent another Netanya massacre.

JERUSALEM (AP) - With the Palestinian territories sealed off and armed guards posted at synagogues, Jews gathered Wednesday for the ritual Passover meal that commemorates the flight of the ancient Israelites from bondage in Egypt.

During the weeklong Passover holiday, observant Jews eat matzo - unleavened bread - to illustrate how the Israelites had no time to let their bread rise as they fled.

Israeli security forces were put on high alert for the duration of the holiday, with some 13,000 troops deployed across the country to prevent possible attacks by Palestinian militants. Security forces have received more than 80 warnings about planned attacks, somewhat higher than the usual level, media reported.

The police commissioner, Moshe Karadi, said each synagogue would have at least one armed guard, and police would be posted at hotels where many Israelis were attending Passover meals after sundown Wednesday.

Four years ago, a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 29 Israelis at a ritual Passover dinner in a hotel in the coastal town of Netanya.

Notice, however, that they manage to downplay the fact that hundreds were wounded besides the 29 killed, and that some of the victims were Holocaust survivors. Never forget.

Hamas was behind the Netanya Massacre. Now Hamas is in charge of the PA. Does anyone with half a brain truly doubt that their aims have not changed? They want to destroy Israel.

But I digress.

Next, the article covers two Fatah terrorists killed by the IDF on their way to infiltrating into Israel. Finally, the AP gets to the “high-tech” Passover schtick:

The Internet offered a wide variety of sites for those who put a premium on convenience when carrying out the ceremonial custom of “selling” nonperishable forbidden food to a non-Jew, for “repurchase” after the holiday. Faxing sale transaction requests through a religious intermediary was another option.

The government took the low-tech route. Israel’s chief rabbis, in keeping with state tradition, sold the country’s leavened foods to an Israeli Arab from a suburban Jerusalem town Tuesday for a $4,350 down payment. The man will sell the food back to the state after the holiday ends, and the buyer will have his money reimbursed.

Wow! Faxes and the Internet! How much higher tech can you get? I sit, stunned, at the ingenuity of those wily, hi-tech Jews. Of course, contrast that with the government’s low-tech, traditional ways and hang your head in shame.

But the AP isn’t finished with slamming Israel. No, they have to get in a bit more bad news. So they report on the rise of poverty in Israel (which is, truthfully, a shame that needs to be addressed). They don’t mention whether or not the soup kitchens are high tech.

Yeah, I know, I could just stop reading the AP. But then where would I get my post fodder?

My heart really goes out to the Hamas’ elected officials. On one hand, they are trying to do their best projecting hate to all things Israeli and Jewish. Their charter is alive and vibrant as usual. Their encouragement of the Qassam rocket launches continues, the number of suicide bombers has not dropped and all the alphabet soup gangs fare very well, thanks to Hamas’ leadership.

But, on the other hand, their bank account is suffering somewhat, and the lip service paid by their Arab brethren is mostly what it is: lip service, not necessarily followed up by the real money wired from their bank accounts.

So Hamas is in feverish search for a formula that will allow then to make Europeans and others happy with their new peaceful facelift and at the same time to explain to their captive internal audience that nothing has changed and that the Jooz still have to be killed off. And let the simoleons to flow from the usual suckers.

It is not to say that Europeans are not ready to accept any old two-faced formula, no, many of them are quite willing. Some of them (see the case of Norway) are not even waiting for that face-saving formula to be brought forth. Still, Hamas are new in the murky business of politics, and they have still not mastered completely the necessary language. It will take a few weeks more.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera is happy to announce that “Hamas ‘willing’ to recognize Israel“. Pay attention to the fact that even Al Jazeera is suspicious of that “willing”.

The Hamas-led Palestinian government is willing to recognize Israel if the latter withdraws fully from West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera. net has reliably learnt. Sources close to Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, described the Hamas decision as a “significant change in policy”. “What it means is that the Palestinian government is willing to recognize Israel if Israel met certain conditions, including a complete withdrawal from the territories Israel occupied in 1967,” a source told Al Jazeera.net on Wednesday.

What it means to normal, skeptically-minded people is that Hamas is in a feverish search for that magic double-tongued formula that will open the coffers of the US and Europeans again.

Take a good look an another Al Jazeera article published only two days earlier, concerning the unfortunate Hamas letter to UN:

The official UN translation from Arabic quotes al-Zahar as saying that Israel’s “de facto annexation of the area, will definitely rule out any hope of achieving a settlement and peace based on a two-state solution”.

When Mansour distributed an unofficial translation on April 4, al-Zahar told reporters in Gaza that the wrong version had been sent to the UN and produced another one without references to the two-state solution.

Oh well. Eventually, I have not a shred of doubt about it, Hamas will find that formula, and the money will start coming in.

One point, though: if Hamas consider for a moment that we shall continue sitting on our backsides, ripping the petals off from nearby flowers and mumbling “Loves / doesn’t, loves / doesn’t…”, they may have a surprise coming.

Although - there are no surprises in the Middle East politics, surely. Too bad.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews