Regarding the power station that the IDF took out in Gaza when it was being used as cover for rocket launches…

Israel knew exactly what it was bombing, says station manager Dr. Drar Abu-Sisi. It’s impossible to operate the station without the transformers. Replacing them would take at least a year - either by ordering new transformers or by hooking up to the Egyptian power network.

With a capacity of 140 megawatts, the power station was the most advanced in the Arab world. Israel could have paralyzed the station by simply stopping its fuel supply, without putting it out of action for months.

“Had they told us on the phone to cut the power off, we’d have done so right away,” says Abu-Sisi, who is convinced that the bombing was politically motivated.

Sure you would have. Uh huh. Yeah, right.

I’ve had a request for pictures of the beach. I haven’t gotten pictures of the beach yet, because yesterday I decided I wanted to, you know, swim and lie in the sand and swim some more and lie in the sand some more and then swim again and lie in the sand again. (We have beach umbrellas, and I have about zero tan, so I lie in the shade, thankyouverymuch.)

We got to the beach elevenish, got in the water at one minute past elevenish, or as long as it took us to set up. Stayed until lunchtime, went to the house for an hour or so, and then back to the beach until nearly six. The girls didn’t want to leave, and yet, by the time we got home, were awfully quiet and subdued.

I have high-sun supervisory duty. Heidi can’t be out in the sun between ten and two, so my job this week is to be the adult supervision during the afternoon. I think I’ve scared the girls enough about high tides and backwash and undertows and riptides. They’re showing very good ocean safety skills.

Okay, I didn’t really try to terrify them. I just explained to them what the waves can do to you, and taught them to respect the force that is so much fun to surf but that will turn on you in a moment. We all have the beach version of road rash (shell rash? sand rash?) from body surfing or surfing with a boogie board. The shelf of the NC beach is very different from the NJ beaches where I grew up. In New Jersey, there was a drop a short way from the shore, and you could generally pull out of the wave there and not get smashed up on the beach. There’s no such drop here, only belly-flopping on the shell fragments. And may I say: Ow.

The house really is ugly from the outside, but as I said, it’s decent inside. I love the third-floor deck, where you can sit and enjoy the ocean breeze day or night. The picture above was our view of the town from the deck last night, just before sunset. I had enough energy to take a picture, but not much more than that.

While I was watching the girls in the water yesterday, I kept wondering if that’s what my father used to do when he brought my brothers and me to the Jersey shore back in the day. But there were lifeguards there, and my father was from the school of hard knocks, so I’m thinking I’m a bit more paranoid than he was. Then again, there aren’t any lifeguards on this beach, and they’re not my kids, so perhaps I’m being a bit more careful for those reasons.

In any case, I find it easiest to watch the girls while in the water. So we swim together a lot.

Rain, rain, go away. I want to hit the beach today.

Since it’s cloudy and overcast and looks like it may rain today, and because we were all exhausted from our fun in the sun yesterday and went to bed early, thus getting up early, I can take the time out from the fabulous North Carolina Outer Banks to catch up on the news.

The AP apparently can only count Israeli cease-fire breaches: Hezbullah sent ten rockets toward IDF forces after the cease-fire was declared, and not a single headline said “Cease-fire breached by Hezbullah.” Israeli jets buzz Lebanon and Syria, and the AP goes wild. Note the headline. Hey, everyone else’s airplanes fly. Israel’s roar.

Israeli Warplanes Roar Over Lebanon
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Israeli warplanes roared over Lebanon’s northern Mediterranean coast and along its border with Syria on Monday, after the Lebanese defense minister warned rogue Palestinian rocket teams against attacking Israel and provoking retaliation that could unravel an already shaky cease-fire.

Lebanon considers overflights a violation of the U.N. resolution that ended 34 days of fighting last week.

Note how the Lebanese government is toeing the Hezbullah line. “Resistance” is its name, even though Lebanon is not occupied by Israel. Right.

Defense Minister Elias Murr said he was confident that Hezbollah would hold its fire but warned Syrian-backed Palestinian militants against rocket attacks which might draw Israeli retaliation and re-ignite full-scale fighting.

“We consider that when the resistance (Hezbollah) is committed not to fire rockets, then any rocket that is fired from the Lebanese territory would be considered collaboration with Israel to provide a pretext (for Israel) to strike,” he said Sunday.

And here, of course, is more anti-Israel spin:

Israel has long accused Syria, along with Iran, of arming and supporting Hezbollah. During the war, however, Israel avoided trying to draw Syria into the conflict, apparently fearing another front or closing peace options.

Israel has long had proof that Syria and Iran are arming and supporting Hezbullah. And the IDF now has proof that Iran is subverting UN shipments of high-tech military equipment to terrorists.

British officials are investigating Israeli military allegations that night vision goggles uncovered in a Hizbullah hideout were manufactured in Britain, a Foreign Office spokesman said on Monday.

“The Israeli Defense Forces have told us that they have found some night vision equipment in southern Lebanon that they believe to have been manufactured in Britain,” the spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity, in line with policy.

“We are seeking further details of the equipment to investigate whether it is British and, if so, by whom it was made and to whom it was sold,” the spokesman said.

Britain’s The Times newspaper reported Monday that Israeli officials believe the goggles may be from a consignment sold by Britain in 2003 to Iran.

The sale to Tehran was intended to bolster Iranian efforts to combat heroin smuggling across the Iran-Afghanistan border as part of the
United Nations Drugs Control Program, the newspaper claimed.

If that isn’t proof enough, this happened last Friday:

Israeli and American intelligence agencies alerted Turkish authorities last Friday that several Lebanon-bound Iranian planes, loaded with military hardware meant for the Hizbullah, were making their way through Turkish airspace, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

[...] Shortly after Turkey was tipped off, Iranian officials ordered the planes to return to their point of departure, where, according to unconfirmed Turkish reports, the arms were removed from the Iranian planes.

After offloading the arms, the planes took off again and were forced to land in Turkey for inspection by the airport authorities. Turkish aviation officials told the Post that no weapons were found on the planes.

Look for the news services to spin this as “humanitarian relief” being held up in the future—without the context that Iran’s already been caught trying to resupply Hezbullah.

The AP also has a problem with Israel’s insistence that UN peacekeepers be made up of countries that actually, you know, have ties with Israel. Because it’s not like the army of a country that you have no ties with is going to be interested in being fair to you and your people, right? Hell, the UN has already proved it will do nothing to stop Hezbullah from kidnapping IDF troops, build up an arsenal big enough to menace a nation, and shoot from beneath IDF posts. And Israel has the nerve to complain about the makeup of the UN peacekeeping force?

Israel Puts Conditions on Peacekeepers
JERUSALEM (AP) - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that countries which don’t have diplomatic relations with the Jewish state should not participate in the international peacekeeping force that will police a truce along the Lebanese border, his office said.

By the way, that peacekeeping force? Funny, but nobody wants to be a part of it. Not even France, the country that brokered the cease-fire.

Meanwhile, France called for a meeting of European Union countries this week to determine the number of troops they are prepared to contribute to the expanded U.N. peacekeeping force.

Europe has been slow to make any firm troop commitments, and U.N. officials have called on the Europeans to offer more troops to balance pledges from Muslim countries.

And, to end this on a positive note: Finland held a rally in support of Israel, and it wasn’t just Jews who showed up.

From Finland with love: Almost a week after the war in Lebanon ended, thousands of Finns gathered in Helsinki Sunday evening to express their support for Israel.

The rally, which was secured by dozens of police officers, drew local Jews as well as non-Jewish residents.

[...] Israeli Ambassador in Finland, Shemi Tzur, told Ynet the evening newscast opened with a report about the rally, which apparently drew 2,800 participants. The television report noted that the rally “proved beyond any doubt the Israeli power and the fact there’s great sympathy for Israel.”

“People arrived from all over Finland. Some of them traveled almost the whole night – 10 hours – in order to reach Helsinki,” Tzur said. “The protesters marched through Helsinki’s two major streets on Sunday, while all coffee shops were packed. Reactions on the street were great – people yelled out ‘let’s go Israel.’”

That’s wonderful to hear.