This is interesting:

A swift cannon developed in the United States managed to intercept replicas of Qassam rockets during an experiment designed to test its ability to operate on the Gaza border.

The anti-Qasam system is developed by an American company, Lockheed Martin, which also manufactures F-16 jets, and was named Sky Shield. The system was based on radars and two swift cannons with a firing rate reaching up to a thousand shells a minute.

According to company sources, the cannon succeeded in smashing the combat head of the Qassam rocket replica during an experiment. The experiment took place on land, although the company claimed that the system proved capable of intercepting rockets in the air.

Talk to me some more when you can intercept an incoming kassam. Until then, I think $15 mil is a bit steep for a cannon that hasn’t hit flying rockets. On the other hand, take away the palestinian rocket weapon, and you have—peace. Because they’ll be forced to negotiate.

How many palestinians is worth one Jew? Apparently, more than 1400. And remember, this is THEIR estimation, not ours. We’re not the ones doing the asking.

The Hamas movement announced that it demands to place Tanzim leader in the West Bank Marwan Barghouti, who is jailed in Israel , at the top of the list of Palestinian prisoners who will be freed as part of a deal for the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit , the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat reported Thursday.

According to the report, Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal told Barghouti’s wife that the abducted soldier will not be freed without her husband’s release.

In addition, the movement demanded that Israel releases 1,400 prisoners in three stages as part of the deal. The first stage will include the release of 400 women and youths jailed in Israel, and Hamas will simultaneously transfer Shalit to Egypt.

Why transfer him to Egypt? So Egypt can hold him until the deal is finished?

In the second stage Israel will release 500 Palestinian prisoners, and Shalit will simultaneously be transferred to Israel. In the third stage Israel will release another 500 prisoners.

How does Egypt, who is at peace with Israel, have the gall to agree to imprison an Israeli soldier? This is wrong in so many ways I can’t begin to count them. Don’t sign off on that one, Olmert.

More spurious arrest warrants for Israelis:

Former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon escaped an arrest during a visit to New Zealand.

The warranty, which was filed by a New Zealand citizen against Yaalon for alleged war crimes, was cancelled at the last minute after the local Justice Ministry interfered, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported Thursday.

The Foreign Ministry confirmed that a legal claim wad filed in New Zealand and was later rejected by attorney general in Auckland. Ministry
officials told Ynet, “We are continuing to follow the affair. In the meantime, Yaalon had ended his tour there.”

They never tried to arrest Arafat for any of his crimes against humanity. Go figure. I guess murdering hundreds of Jews doesn’t rate as a war crime in these PoMo times.

Omri wants to know why this search term showed up on his blog. I have nothing to hide, as I am famously camera-shy. There are some early eight-millimeters in existence of me at my cousins’ parties, but unless you want to see me bugging the hell out of my brother with a party noisemaker at the age of ten or so, it simply won’t thrill you. Nope, no videos of me out there.

You might also want to read Omri’s post about me and cats. It’s pretty funny. Wrong, but funny.

This guy has a very, very funny video. The first one seems like something it’s not. Trust me, watch it to the end, and you will laugh very loudly.

There’s a new blog in town: Isreali, and it’s the first official blog from the State of Israel. Lots of videos, lots of stories, and get out the hankies if you read this one.

And they have Sumo wrestlers floating in the Dead Sea. Yes, Sumo wrestlers. (There is simply no way that thing they wear can be comfortable. Ew.)

Oh, man. I REALLY want to visit Israel. Like, tomorrow. No, wait. Not ’til Gracie’s better.

And last, but not least, my brother sent this hilarious video. It’s called PMS Survival Tips, and it’s a parody of the 1950s teaching films. Utterly. Hilarious.

The Associated Press whitewashes our enemies, and Israel’s enemies, on a regular basis. Case in point: Ahmadinejad’s letter to America.

What the AP published:

In Wednesday’s letter, he said, “we, like you, are aggrieved by the ever-worsening pain and misery of the Palestinian people” and accused the Bush administration of disregarding public opinion by remaining “in the forefront of supporting the trampling of the rights of the Palestinian people.”

Besides passing along a lie (Americans favor Israel over the palestinians in poll after poll after poll), the AP neglected to publish the paragraphs that immediately follow the above quote, which include more examples of Ahmadinejad’s rejectionism towards Israel. Note the refusal, as always, to call Israel by her name.

What Ahmadinejad wrote:

For 60 years, the Zionist regime has driven millions of the inhabitants of Palestine out of their homes. Many of these refugees have died in the Diaspora and in refugee camps. Their children have spent their youth in these camps and are aging while still in the hope of returning to homeland.

You know well that the US administration has persistently provided blind and blanket support to the Zionist regime, has emboldened it to continue its crimes, and has prevented the UN Security Council from condemning it.

Who can deny such broken promises and grave injustices towards humanity by the US administration?

Governments are there to serve their own people. No people wants to side with or support any oppressors. But regrettably, the US administration disregards even its own public opinion and remains in the forefront of supporting the trampling of the rights of the Palestinian people.

Here’s another example of leaving out the worst of two paragraphs (though this one is bad enough):

What the AP published:

“What has blind support for the Zionists by the U.S. administration brought for the American people?,” Ahmadinejad asked. “It is regrettable that for the U.S. administration, the interests of these occupiers supersedes the interests of the American people and of the other nations of the world.”

What Ahmadinejad wrote:

What has blind support for the Zionists by the US administration brought for the American people? It is regrettable that for the US administration, the interests of these occupiers supersedes the interests of the American people and of the other nations of the world.

What have the Zionists done for the American people that the US administration considers itself obliged to blindly support these infamous aggressors? Is it not because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors?

There you go, a little bit of naked Jew-hatred thrown in for you. Banking, financial, cultural, and media industries. Hey, he forgot the lawyers and doctors.

In this next example, the AP elides Ahmadinejad’s latest iteration of his rejection of Israel’s legitimacy. Let’s take another look at the first paragraph I mentioned:

What the AP published:

In Wednesday’s letter, he said, “we, like you, are aggrieved by the ever-worsening pain and misery of the Palestinian people”

What Ahamdinejad wrote:

We, like you, are aggrieved by the ever-worsening pain and misery of the Palestinian people. Persistent aggressions by the Zionists are making life more and more difficult for the rightful owners of the land of Palestine

Funny how the AP manages to ignore that bit about the “rightful owners” of that mythical land of “Palestine.” Just as funny as the AP neglecting to point out that sentence about the Jews running the world.

This is yet another publicity ploy by a man who is not our friend, who lies when he says he cares about Americans, who lies when he talks about truth, justice, and human rights. Women are not equal in Iran. There is no dissent in the press. Dissidents have been beaten, tortured, and murdered. And this man lectures us on Abu Ghraib?

And the AP passes along most of his lies and does him the courtesy of deleting the more controversial points of his letter.

Can’t wait to see the Reuters version.

Update: Good for CNN! They mentioned the anti-Semitism and included the quote that the AP left out.

In his letter, Ahmadinejad — who has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” — asks what the U.S. government’s “blind support for the Zionists” has “brought for the American people.”

“Is it not because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors?” he said, referring to Jewish people,

I’m tired of depressing world events, how ’bout you?

Well, the world is going to the dogs. So is this post.

The Nanny State in the U.K. brought animal cruelty charges against a two men who overfed their dog.

Rusty, a nine-year-old labrador, may only have been doing what labradors do, which is to eat everything in sight. But he ballooned to more than 11½ stone (161lb, 73kg), the ideal weight for a large-boned 6ft (1.82m) woman, but not a retriever, which should be chasing sticks and newly shot game.

Rusty had trouble standing up, and after no more than five paces he had to sit down again, breathless. He looked, magistrates at Ely, Cambridgeshire, were told yesterday, more like a seal than a dog.

In what is thought to be the first case of its kind, Rusty’s owners, David Benton and his brother Derek, have been charged with animal cruelty for allowing him to become grossly overweight.

According to the Kennel Club, the ideal weight for a dog of Rusty’s age and breed is between 65lb and 80lb. When found by an RSPCA inspector, Rusty was more than twice the upper limit. Unlike most labradors, he was quite incapable of leaping into a van.

Suddenly, Tig doesn’t seem so fat, does he?

And in more dog news, China has instituted a one-dog policy in parts of Beijing. Residents are actually on the streets protesting this new rule.

And last, but not least: There’s a sheep in the U.K. that thinks it’s a dog.

A SHEEP on an Alnwick farm has got itself a little mixed up.

Cora, an eight-month-old Suffolk cross Beltex, thinks she’s a dog. While the rest of the flock at Heckley High House is grazing in the fields, Cora keeps her distance in her own paddock and happily goes out for walks with the dogs.

And Cora will jump out if she finds herself in the same field as other sheep. But despite this anti-social trait, Cora is very affectionate towards owner Emily Wakefield, 16, and Holly, a rough cross Border collie.

Our favorite Jew-hater, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has written a letter to Americans that will be released later today. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait!

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written a letter to the American people that will be released at U.N. headquarters in New York on Wednesday, a state newspaper reported.

The newspaper gave no details of the letter, an apparent attempt by the firebrand president to reach out to Americans over the head of their government.

The state-run newspaper Iran reported the letter in bold type on its front page, saying “the five-page letter to the American people will be released by Iran’s representative at the United Nations today.”

I’m going to guess what it says: Blahblahblah Zionist entity, blahblahblah, arrogant president, blahblahblah Iran has no problem with Americans, we love you, it’s your leaders that we hate, blahblahblah Iran is peaceful and does not want nukes, blahblahblah, blahblahblah there was no Holocaust, blahblahblah palestinians, blahblahblah Iraq is Vietnam, blahblahblah convert or die, filthy infidels!

Whoops? How did that last bit get there?

Average Iranians were disappointed by the cold response to the May letter, the first official communication between the two countries’ presidents since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Earlier this month, Ahmadinejad said he was planning to write a letter to Americans.

“Many American people asked me to talk to them in order to explain the views of the Iranian people,” Ahmadinejad told reporters, referring to his visit to New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly session in September 2005.

Wow, two big whoppers in three paragraph. Number one, who asked him? I don’t know anyone who asked him to explain the views of the Iranian people. Number two, so, the average Iranian was “disappointed by the cold response to the May letter”? Yeah? Says who? The Iranian press agencies? Wow, AP reporter, good investigation techniques! Way to cite your sources!

But the AP does manage to get this right:

Ahmadinejad has alienated many Americans by calling for Israel’s destruction and repeatedly dismissing the Holocaust as a myth. He also strongly supports the Palestinian militant group Hamas and the Lebanese faction Hezbollah, which the U.S. State Department lists as terrorist organizations.

Gee. Not getting why supporting the terrorist group that murdered 241 Marines in Lebanon would piss us off.

Looking forward to reading the letter. Looking even more forward to reading the many parodies that will show up later today.

This is, purportedly, a Hebrew translation of an article in Al Mustaqbal newspaper (there is no link to the original article, so I am guessing that this is the link and will be grateful for a confirmation from any Arabic-reading guest here). The translation says, more or less, the following:

The Lebanese newspaper (journal) Al Mustaqbal reported today (Nov. 29, 2006) that Lebanese security succeeded to uncover a Syrian plot to kill 36 Lebanese leaders.

According to the newspaper, the plot came to light four days ago, when two members of the group that was sent to the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon - Burg’ El Barag’ne and El Badawi, were arrested. During interrogation, the two confessed that they belong to the Fatah-Intifadah movement led by Abu Musa.

The two told that they came to Lebanon as part of a group of 200, 150 of those arrived at the El Badawi camp and the other 50 - at Burg’ El Barag’ne.

If this is not a wild exaggeration or a propaganda ploy by one of the many rival Lebanese fractions*, baby Assad has a lot to answer for.

(*) I understand that Al Mustaqbal is owned by the Hariri family, so…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Lair reminded me that it’s Tummy Tuesday, time to show off our catbellies. Tig has quite the belly to show off, too, as you can see in this series of shots.

Here, Tig’s fast asleep.

Two hours laters, Tig’s still fast asleep, but has changed position somewhat.

I love the delicately-held leg in mid-air.

The flash has woken him up, but that doesn’t stop him from continuing to look goofy.

And finally, the big stretch, in preparation to: Go upstairs and go to sleep. After eating something first, of course.

These pictures were taken while Gracie was still not eating, and I was waiting for the biopsy results. That’s her towel, not his, on the sofa. She slept on it while she was recovering. She is on the chair next to me as I write this, and her tail is almost back to its whip-like strength. (When she is fully recovered, I’ll have to remember to once again move my drinks out of range—that tail knocks things off my table at will.) And, best of all to report on a Tummy Tuesday—two nights ago, she lay down and rolled over for a bellyrub, though she didn’t stay long, and didn’t want the area with the scar touched at all. But she has a furry chest at the top of her tummy that she liked getting skritched just fine.

And the deep, throaty purr is returning.

Toldja so. He’s not Jewish. Which makes him even more of a bigot, what with now also being charged with anti-Semitic rants as well.

Last week, crisis-management expert Howard Rubenstein acknowledged that Richards had shouted anti-Semitic remarks in an April standup comedy routine well before his appearance earlier this month in which he harangued hecklers with the n-word. But he defended Richards’ language about Jews, saying that the comic “is Jewish. He’s not anti-Semitic at all. He was role-playing.”

As Rubenstein’s assertion circulated, Jewish organizations and commentators pointed out that the man who played Cosmo Kramer on “Seinfeld” has not converted to Judaism and neither of his parents are Jewish.

Right. Not Jewish. How does his idiot publicist spin this?

“Technically, not having been born by blood as Jewish and not formally going into a conversion, it was purely his interpretation of having adopted Judaism as his religion,” Rubenstein told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “He told me, `I’m Jewish,’ when I asked him.

“He said there were two mentors who raised him and who had a big influence on his life, and they were Jewish. He said, `I agree with the concepts and the religious beliefs of Judaism and I’ve adopted Judaism as my religion,’” Rubenstein said. “He really thinks of himself as Jewish.”

You know, I really think of myself as telekinetic. Therefore, I can move objects with my mind.

Oh, yeah. Logic sets in. You see, Michael Richards is as Jewish as I am telekinetic.

I’m going to guess that the closest he’s ever come to Jewish is being circumsized as a baby. And I wouldn’t lay odds on that.

And now, let the bigot magnet commence, so I can get more samples for my freakmail folder. I’ll use it in another podcast someday.

I swear, you could recycle my posts. Just look back in my archives to find the exact same thing.

Okay, so a cease-fire is declared for Sunday. Terrorists launch rockets into Israel an hour after it was supposed to take effect.

Terrorists launch rockets on Monday.

Terrorists launch more rockets on Tuesday.

Ceasefire breached again: A Qassam rocket fired by Palestinian gunmen into Israeli territory Tuesday evening landed in an open area next to Sderot; a short while later a second rocket landed just north of the western Negev town.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the military arm of Fatah, took responsibility for firing the two Qassam rockets that landed Tuesday next to Sderot. The organization announced that the shootings will continue in response to continued Israeli violations of the ceasefire.

And yet, the world media declares the cease-fire to be “holding.” They call it “fragile,” too. And as I said in my last post, when the IDF goes after the terrorists who are launching the rockets, the headlines will read “Israel violates cease-fire.” Trust me on this one.

And oh, yeah—the terrorists have developed a new, presumably deadlier, rocket.

Way to go, Ehud! Great cease-fire!

As the fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians goes into its third day, dozens of members of the of the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade gathered in Nablus for a military parade showing off what they say is the new and improved rockets of the organization in the West Bank.

The activists claimed that the rocket is a new model called Jund Allah 1, and it will be operational soon to be launched at Israeli targets.
The Brigades clarified that in case of an Israeli escalation, the rockets will land in a short time in Israel.

Al-Aqsa is run by Fatah, which is run by Mahmoud Abbas, who pretends that he has no control over his own organization. And the media pass on those lies.

Palestinian lawmaker Saeb Erekat on Monday condemned a Qassam rocket strike on Israel from Gaza earlier in the day, but said that the day-old cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians “can work, and I believe we have to make it work.”

Speaking to Channel 2 Television, Erekat called for patience regarding the truce violations. “I admit there were Palestinian violations, [and] let me condemn them,” he said.

No worries, Saeb, please feel free to condemn them. Let’s just read together the following quote from the same article:

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks.

Them Al-Aqsa Wannabe Martyrs - are they from your own (Fatah) gang, as it looks? No mistake?

OK, now let’s hear the condemnations…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

You can tell the guy who wrote this really, really, really wanted to use the word “defenestrate.”

Police suspect Hadera woman was defenestrated
By JPOST.COM STAFF

A woman in her 30s was listed in moderate to serious condition on Monday afternoon with injuries sustained after she fell from the third story of a Hadera building.

Police suspect that the woman had actually been defenestrated by her husband, but wer unable to question him immediately after the incident, as he appeared to be drunk.

And although “defenestrated” sounds dirty, for those of you who are too lazy to look it up via dictionary.com, it means to throw out a window. As in, the husband threw his wife out the window. Oh, sure, it can conserve space. But you know the writer really, really, really got a kick out of being able to use “defenestrate” in that story and headline.

Here’s a story with the wonderful news that an off-duty policeman attacked an Orthodox Jew on the streets of Melbourne. Nice.

The softly spoken Melbourne businessman, an orthodox Jew, was walking along a street in his East St Kilda neighbourhood one Saturday in October with two of his young children when drunken football fans in a minibus first verbally abused him. One then punched him in the face.

Attacks such as the one on Mr Vorchheimer reached a record high of 156 in the year to the end of September, according to a new report to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

The category of “attacks” includes abuse such as arson and vandalism, while “threats” include threats via telephone, leaflets, posters or email.

The combined total was 442, including the vandalising of synagogues, a Jewish university student being spat on and worshippers leaving a synagogue being pelted with eggs.

Former council president Jeremy Jones, who has been compiling the figures since 1989 from community reports, said a rise in reports generally occurred when perpetrators believed they could get away with them.

Weeks after the attack on Mr Vorchheimer, with no charges laid, it came to light that the driver of the bus was an off-duty policeman, and last Friday, the day before the Victorian state election, Mr Vorchheimer handed Premier Steve Bracks a copy of his police statement and urged him to take action.

So, what’s the headline to the story? Is it “Anti-Semitic attacks up in Australia”?

Nope.

Rise in attacks on Jews tests forgiveness

Because, after all, forgiveness is what we should be focusing on. Not the rising number of attacks on Jews.

Morons.

(It’s no use telling self to limit the surfing to places self already knows. Self seems to be incorrigible.)

And so it happened that I have stumbled upon another interesting bunch of people that call themselves (a bit pompously to my simple tastes) “FFIPP, the Faculty For Israeli-Palestinian Peace”. On the face of it, not a bad idea: we cannot have enough of cooperation between all Palestinians and Israelis of good will and good intentions.

But then it all went downhill very quickly. Starting with the Guiding Principles (see the link above) that mention the security of Israelis in passing only in item 9:

9. FFIPP-I views the struggle for justice and the support of Palestinian rights as simultaneously a struggle for the security and moral status of Israelis and world Jewry.

The formula is extremely ambiguous. Does it mean that the struggle for justice/support for Palestinians automatically resolves the security and moral status [sic!] of Israelis? And what does “world Jewry” have to do with all of the above? Too mealy-mouthed for my taste. Or made vague intentionally?

Other than the already quoted, the Guiding Principles do not mention the security of the darn Israelis (that, in general, seem to be rather a hindrance to the whole FFIPP business). Well, in fact they do, but in a negative way:

3. FFIPP-I regards academic freedom for Palestinians as a key issue, focusing on the human right of the Palestinians to study free of hardships. This entails a struggle for the immediate alleviation of the conditions of the vast majority of the Palestinians, i.e., an end to checkpoints, dismantling of the Wall, and a complete end of occupation.

Dismantling of the Wall… Surely, this measure is going to improve the security of both sides to no end. Let’s see what does a more… er… down to earth, so to say, more practical person, in other words - Secretary General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization - has to say on the subject of the Wall:

Secretary General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization spoke with the Lebanese al-Manar television station and said that the security fence built by Israel has made it very difficult for his people to conduct attacks against the Jewish state.

“The fence is a barrier and has completely changed the situation on the ground,” said Ramadan Abdallah Shalah, secretary general of the terror group which operates in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, but is headquartered in Syria.

Of course, it is perfectly possible that the fence (which is a barrier at the same time) described by this expert is not one and the same as the Wall that should be dismantled, according to FFIPP. Notice - it is not that they demand that the “wall” follow the so called Green Line, no - they want it to be removed. Probably to reduce the frustration level of Mr. Ramadan Abdallah Shalah (PBUH) that seems to be mightily displeased with that unfair interference with his plans.

So much about the Guiding Principles. Aside of this interesting exercise in fairness and balance, I have read only one other document: An Urgent Call to Stop Violence and Make Peace. To let you go to your beer and pretzels quicker, I shall summarize it for you: it follows the general line of its first sentence and a half: “The Palestinian people are again subject to horrific violence and unbearable suffering. Particularly critical are the conditions in Gaza…”

That is not surprising. What is surprising indeed is that the whole document does not mention Qassams nor the kidnapping of our soldier. That from a Faculty For Israeli-Palestinian Peace (not just Palestinian Peace, mind you). And then, another “surprise”: “While it considers resistance to occupation legitimate, FFIPPI promotes non-violent practices as the best path for justice and peace.”. So, Qassams on Sderot are legitimate, but FFIPPI will be willing to consider some non-violent practices as a… what? An alternative? An addition to Qassams? Unclear…

Now to the point. What FFIPPI stands for is more or less clear and hardly surprising. What does take the biscuit in this story is this list of signatures. The number of Jews who have signed it, if indeed they did, is amazing.

I really don’t know - does high education and specialization in some narrow area of science harm some basic brain cells? Do I have to be happy for the high moral horse some of my people are riding or to cry that my people seem to give birth to so many useful idiots? Aw, what the heck - mere rhetoric it was, and you and I know it…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

So let’s see what the cease-fire and Olmert’s major concession speech have wrought:

Hamas says they’re going to kidnap more Israeli soldiers. And why wouldn’t they? Look what kidnapping Gilad Shalit has done: It’s gotten Israel to offer them a state.

Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal has threatened further kidnappings of Israeli troops on Monday afternoon, according to the Hamas affiliated Palestine Info website.

Kidnappings like the abduction “done four months ago” of Gilad Shalit would go on, the report said, as part of “a bid to swap them for Palestinian detainees languishing in occupation dungeons.”

“As long as there are (Palestinian) captives, the resistance will continue to capture Zionist soldiers to exchange them for those captives who spent long years in occupation jails,” Mashaal was quoted as saying.

Yep. And oh, yeah, Hamas wants free passage in the West Bank, too. Never mind that the security forces are constantly stopping terror attacks (they got another one only last week, and found one with liquid explosives a short time ago). Sure, let them have free passage. It’s not like they want to murder Israelis or anything like that.

I hate linking WND, but Ynet keeps using them, so I’m going to assume that the stories Ynet links are legit. Because they interviewed a PRC terrorist, who said they’re using the cease-fire to rearm and reload. Color me unsurprised.

The ceasefire to which Israel and major Palestinian factions agreed yesterday will be used by Palestinian groups to smuggle weapons into Gaza, reinforce and train “fighter units,” and produce rockets for a future confrontation with the Jewish state, the leaders of the four most significant Palestinian terror groups in Gaza told WND in a series of exclusive interviews.

“The ceasefire offers a period of calm for our fighters to recover and prepare for our final goal of evacuating Palestine,” said Abu Abir, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, a Hamas-allied terror organization in the Gaza Strip responsible for many of the recent rocket attacks against Israeli communities.

“We will keep fighting (Israel), but for the moment we will postpone certain parts of the military struggle,” Abu Abir said.

Ehud Olmert is the biggest disaster to hit Israel since the one-two punch of Bibi Netanyahu and Ehud Barak (can you say “Wye River Accords, Camp David 2000, and Taba”? I knew you could.).

However—and I can’t believe I’ve sunk this low—I’m ready for Bibi again. I think that at least this time, he won’t sell the farm. Someone has got to manufacture a no-confidence vote for Olmert and watch Kadima come crashing down.

Even the AP has noticed the council’s anti-Israel bias.

The UN Human Rights Council on Monday passed two resolutions criticizing Israel, but kept its record intact of singling out no other country for human rights abuses.

The 47-nation council, which has censured only Israel since it began operating six months ago, this time took the Jewish state to task for its occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights and for building settlements in occupied Arab territories.

The council voted 32-1 with 14 abstentions to declare illegal Israel’s 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights and demand that Israel rescind its decision to impose its laws and jurisdiction on the area, which it captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Canada, which said the resolution was unbalanced, was the only no vote, and European Union members abstained.

Then it voted 45-1 to demand Israel reverse its policy of building and expanding settlements as a first step toward dismantling them. Again, Canada was the only country to vote against the resolution.

The United States and Israel are not members, but Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva said Syria had proposed the Golan Heights resolution “purely to draw attention away from its … own deplorable human rights record.”

You know it’s got to be a major bias when the AP notices it. Wow.

Okay, I know, it’s just adding fuel to the fire, but y’know, they don’t call me the Master of Juvenile Scorn™ for nothing.

So that big post Dean put up about my refusing to agree with him over Rabbi Kahane’s Open Letter to the World? The one where he calls me a “Kahane apologist” and goes apeshit in the comments?

All I said was that Kahane’s letter is true. Which is, frankly, mostly what Dean said in his earlier post:

Otherwise, I must say I agree with damn near everything in that video.

So, even though he acknowledges the truth of the video, he can’t seem to get off the topic that Kahane wrote the text, and he seems to think he can browbeat me into agreeing with him that Kahane was a terrorist. Three words, Dean: Not. Gonna. Happen.

You know, the Google search engine is a wonderful thing. Why, look what I found with only a cursory search: It seems that as recently as July of this year, Dean didn’t give a damn about people expressing far more favorable opinions of Kahane than I. In fact, he let many instances of commenters and co-bloggers discussing Kahane’s good points go by without saying a thing. No rants about his being a terrorist, no calling them apologists.

This one’s from July, in the comments to a post by Ron Coleman. In fact, co-blogger Ron Coleman said much of what I said about Kahane, and yet, Dean did not go batshit on Ron.

I do know that Meir Kahane’s interest in the State of Israel was based on his love of the Torah, of God and of the Jewish people. I heard him speak in Chicago and a close relative of mine knew him and wrote a biography of him. His views were largely characatured. I was not a follower of his, however; not a topic for this thread. But Arnold, you’re just wrong: Kahane’s views were closer to mine than to yours.

Huh. Go figure. Here his co-blogger is, in Dean’s word, a Kahane apologist. And yet, no vitriol. I don’t get it.

In the very next comment, a regular commenter at Dean’s blog says that Kahane was no racist. And yet, Dean does not call him a “Kahane apologist” either.

And I can tell you for a fact that Kahane was no racist. He was in fact a jewish nationalist, whose views and practices were probably closer to the middle eastern Jews from the islamic lands than the Ashkenazim who constitute most of american Jewry. I know for certain that was one of the reasons the israeli cultural and governmental establishment hated and feared him. Because many of them have racist attitudes about their sefardi and oriental Jews.

I am SO at a loss to explain these discrepancies.

Here’s one from a few years ago where the same commenter says he would support Kahane if he lived in Israel (well, and if he hadn’t been murdered by an Islamic terrorist), and yet, no chastisement from Dean. Okay, it’s from 2003. I can accept the argument that Dean has changed his mind in the past few years. But since July 14, 2006? I’m thinking there’s something else at work here.

And look at this! Another one from Arnold Harris complimenting Kahane, and this one’s—wait for it—from August 16, 2006! Holy cow, that’s only three months ago! Why, it’s as if Dean only got his mad on for Kahane in my case, and ignored it in the others. But no, Dean wouldn’t be that disingenuous, would he?

Of course he would. That is Dean in a nutshell. He likes to throw mud in every direction, see what sticks, and then whine that he didn’t mean to get anyone mad, all the while crying that people are being mean to him. I know it, he knows it, hell, even his own regular readers know it, and say as much in his comments. You’d think he’d be at least a little embarrassed by now. You would be wrong.

For instance, that “personal favor” he talks about in the beginning of his post? The post that started the argument that led to my split from Dean’s little part of the blogosphere was a post with the phrase “To Judith Weiss, Meryl Yourish, and all the other resentful feminists I know.” I asked him to please remove it from Google’s cache, as I’ve been on job hunts and it comes up on the first search page when you Google my name. He did, and I was grateful. But I wouldn’t call that a favor. I would call that a long-overdue removal of an insult. Then again, that’s just me. (If you find that you simply must see the origin of the tiff, here’s a post that sums it all up. The rest you’ll have to find for yourselves.)

I figure by now Dean has caught on to my answers to the question he asks in his post. But just in case, one more time: No.

Let’s stop and think a moment. Why were IDF troops in Gaza? Because the palestinians were launching kassam rockets every day into Sderot, the Negev, and other points in Israel.

So we have a cease-fire that takes effect Sunday morning. What happens? In the first hour, kassams are launched at Sderot. Israel says she will “exercise restraint” and ignore the fact that Hamas—that would be the same terrorist organization that runs the PA these days—itself claimed the rocket fire.

So now it’s Monday, and what happens? More kassam rockets are launched at Sderot. So the media, of course, ignores the fact that if you’re supposed to have a cease fire, and you’re shooting rockets into Israel every day, then it’s not known as a cease-fire, in fact, it is still known as “firing rockets into Israel everyday.”

This is buried in the AP piece about Olmert’s speech:

His offer to restart long-stalled peace talks came a day after the two sides began observing a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, ending five months of widespread violence in the coastal area and raising hopes that the truce would lead to new peace efforts.

Despite the cease-fire, Palestinian militants fired two rockets at Israel on Monday, causing no injuries, Israeli authorities said.

The AP sees no cognitive dissonance in pointing out that there is a cease-fire in effect, but that firing two rockets isn’t breaching it. Yes, such is the low threshhold held for terrorists that they’re allowed to keep a cease-fire while breaching it, but if the IDF then responds to the rocket attacks—and it will—the headlines will be “Israel breaks truce with palestinians.”

Count on it.

As for Olmert’s speech: Wrong time for it. You offer concessions from a position of strength, and right now, Israel isn’t looking very strong.

(I just have to start this post the same way as the previous one on the subject) .

It is already five days since Alexander Litvinenko died - a slow and horrible death. And the vultures are circling, getting closer each day.

Now the scumbags are trying to start another line of slander. In a big way too, take a look:

Litvinenko: police probe claims he may have killed himself

No matter that the contents of the article do not confirm in any way the stink bomb dropped in the headline:

Detectives investigating the death of Alexander Litvinenko were last night examining the possibility that the former spy killed himself to discredit Vladimir Putin.

Detectives were examining a possibility. Quite sure going by the book written a heck of a long time ago. And this means that police probe claims suicide? I guess even the police could sue the wretched scum now. Most probably wouldn’t.

There are all the necessary telltale signs of intractable stupidity in this article:

Traces of the material - powerful enough to trigger a nuclear warhead - were found on tables…

How does the Indys’ troika (Sophie Goodchild, Francis Elliott and Sonia Elks) think polonium 210 triggers that nuclear warhead, I am too afraid to imagine. One thing is clear: not only aren’t they nuclear scientists, all three taken together hardly amount to a person literate enough to open a Wiki site and do themselves a favor, instead of disgracing themselves. Or take this one:

Detectives are still no nearer to establishing just how Mr Litvinenko, a fierce critic of President Alexander Putin’s regime, came to ingest such high doses of polonium.

How high is “such high” in the opinion of the troika? Do they imagine the late colonel greedily stuffing himself from a heap of polonium on his plate? You know, it is highly probable they do - but do not ask how high, please…

Still, there is a distance between mere stupidity and malignancy. And that headline is nothing but sheer malignancy. And the source powerful enough to trigger this mix of malignancy and stupidity is, apparently, an unattributed Russian one:

Some reports in the Russian press have suggested that Mr Litvinenko’s death could have been a “martyrdom operation”, on the grounds that no state would want to attract the attention of a radioactive poison plot.

Some reports… Now you can see it - a hack from Indy repeating some slander from a Russian rag, undoubtedly close to the powers that be. Merde.

But the malignancy does not stop at the headline. Here is the shining pinnacle:

One source close to the investigation said: “He was a guy with a colourful past. It’s not straightforward.”

Now, I can easily agree that a senior KGB/FSB officer collects some colors during his career. And he may have not necessarily been always straightforward. But could he imagine that a liberal and progressive Independent will descend that gutter-low?

Nah - not while alive…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

The CNN article Rockets hit Israel after Gaza cease-fire deadline illustrates exceedingly well the chances of reaching a meaningful agreement with our neighbors:

Palestinian militants in Gaza launched rocket attacks into Israel Sunday, Israeli police and army officials said, hours after a cease-fire in Gaza was agreed upon by the Israeli government and Palestinian factions.

Well, it was expected. One of the long list of the splinter groups - PRC (Popular Resistance Committee - one of the useful and deniable tentacles of Hamas, in fact the biggest tentacle of all) has immediately declared its non-participation in the cease-fire. But PRC is only for starters:

Nabil Abu Rdaina, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said before the Sunday attacks that all Palestinian factions had agreed to stop firing rockets into Israel.

Which is clearly a lie - see the above mention of PRC. But again, it’s small change compared to:

The militant group Islamic Jihad and Hamas’ military wing both claimed responsibility for the attacks.

So Hamas’ own military wing is defying its leaders (yeah, well, if you want to believe it)? And if you want to see hypocrisy, here it comes:

Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad told Israeli Army Radio that an investigation into who fired the rockets and violated the cease-fire will be launched.

And now to the figureheads (or head figures, whatever suits).

Abbas also organized a meeting of Palestinian factions to discuss extending the cease-fire to the West Bank, according to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Pardon me: extending what?

The meeting will be part of the beginning of “a serious, real, honest and direct negotiation between myself and [Abbas] so we could make a progress towards a full settlement between Israel and the Palestinians,” Olmert added.

Yep. Where did we all hear it already? Mmm…

Meanwhile, the Israeli government agreed to withdraw troops from Gaza and cease military operations, said Miri Eisin, a government spokeswoman. “We think that there’s the possibility of hope here,” she said.

That’s really quaint: first we had hope, now it is a possibility of hope. I wonder what is the formula for the next stage: a glimpse of a possibility of hope?

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Carnival of the Cats celebrates its 140th episode over at Scribblings, but things were running just a tad late, but it’s all up now!

And let’s not forget the Catmodel of the Week…

Why, it’s Mr. Jones of Allan Thinks.

Folks who want a shot at being a Catmodel of the Week need to be a part of the banner at Carnival of the Cats. Just send me a 4 by 3 photo of your cat and your weblog link and I’ll add your cat to the banner.

Who knows… you may just see them here as a Catmodel of the Week!

Via Solomonia, an interview on Terrorist TV with the leader of PIJ, who says the fence is stopping suicide bombings in Israel.

On November 11, PIJ leader Abdallah Ramadan Shalah granted a long interview to Al-Manar TV, Hezbollah’s television channel. During the interview, for the first time he admitted that Israel ’s security fence was an important obstacle to the terrorist organizations (the “resistance”).

He noted that the suicide bombing attacks (istishhad) were the Palestinian people’s “strategic choice,” and were meant to “create a balance of force and deterrence” in the campaign against a superior enemy. Ramadan Shalah noted that the terrorist organizations had every intention of continuing suicide bombing attacks , but that their timing and the possibility of implementing them from the West Bank depended on other factors. “For example,” he said, “there is the separation fence, which is an obstacle to the resistance, and if it were not there the situation would be entirely different .”

Two things about this: Number one, how did I miss this report? And number two, this puts paid the theory that the fence is nothing but a “land grab.” It’s working. It isn’t just the IDF and special forces keeping the terrorists in check. The fence is achieving its objective.

FIND OUT ABOUT:
How Iran is following in the footsteps of Nazi Germany.
The Bar Mitzvah boy who had to confront tragedy.
The Jews of Finland.
And a lot more!

Check out Smooth Stone who slings Haveil Havalim #95 your way. Please check out the many wonderful post’s that Smooth has collected for you!

UPCOMING EDITIONS:

#96 - Dec 2, 2006 - Soccer Dad plans to host.
#97 - Dec 9, 2006 - Jack’s Shack has graciously offered to host. e-mail him at talktojacknow at sbcglobal dot net.

The feature interview in Shire Network News this week is with Egyptian Sandmonkey, who discusses the Cairo “youths” sexual attacks on women during the end of Ramadan. It was a way for them to celebrate the Eid, you see.

My podcast is about France and the UN, two of my least favorite things.

Nidra Poller has much, much more on what happened. First, from the day of the event:

After carefully gathering and crosschecking every available scrap of information, this is the closest I can get to an accurate account of the chain of events.

Yanniv Hazout—Israeli or more likely a Jewish Frenchman carrying or wrapped tifosi-style in an Israeli flag—was leaving the stadium with four or five friends when a gang of about 150 men described as PSG fans started to chase them. (This was the clue I missed before my morning coffee; the gang was never described as “youths.”) Philippe Broussard of l’Express, former sports journalist and expert on hooliganism, who witnessed the attack, describes the crowd as an extremely violent dangerous horde, shouting racist and anti-Semitic insults. One source claims that Yanniv and his friends decided to break up…but I find that hard to believe. I’ll have to wait until the Jewish media get the full story on that. Yanniv was alone when Broussard saw the policeman trying to protect him, telling him “stay behind me, stay behind me.” Someone else describes Yanniv pulling the policeman’s sleeve, trying to guide him over to a McDonald’s on the far side of Porte St. Cloud Square.

Granomort, who is assigned to the transport brigade, was not on duty at the stadium that night. One report says he was watching over the parked police cars. Hopefully he will tell his side of the story when he is released from police custody. Knowing what we know of people battered senseless or kicked to death, of policemen ambushed, attacked with iron bars, getting their heads smashed, we can measure the courage of Antoine Granomort who risked his life to protect a young man bearing an Israeli flag in Paris in this day and age.

He could have left Yanniv to his sorry fate. No one would have blamed him. Who would have even known there was a plainclothes policeman in the vicinity?

Granomort tried to hold the attackers off with tear gas. He emptied his canister. They advanced, undaunted. They knocked him down, or he tripped and fell. He was kicked in the head and groin. Did he get up, or shoot from the ground at someone who was about to kick him senseless? No reliable eyewitness testimony has been made public on that detail. He says he warned them that he was a policeman. Then fired one shot.

He and his protégé ran into the Macdonald’s on the other side of Porte St. Cloud Square. The enraged mob followed them. Smashed the windows. The policeman, the Hapoel fan, and a few customers ran to the second floor of the restaurant.

Broussard speculates that the mob didn’t come into the restaurant because they were afraid they would be trapped inside. Maybe, maybe not.

Next, from further research and more witnesses:

Ok, now we have all done some in-depth investigations. I’ll begin with my own. Eyewitness—a young security guard in front of a synagogue Saturday morning. Of course he had seen the PSG-Hapoel game. The atmosphere was okay during the game…there were so many Jews. But when we came out of the stadium they were harassing us, roughing us up, calling us “sales feujs” [dirty kikes], taunting, “Where are your flags, huh? Afraid to show them now?” It was going on all over the place. The CRS [riot police] just stood there and watched.

He saw the beginnings of the incident at Porte St. Cloud…and didn’t linger. There were no problems in the metro because there were so many transportation security police. He wonders…if Hapoel had lost the game would the PSG fans have been so aggressive?

Interviewed by the AFP, Patrick Bittan, martial arts instructor at the GIGN [elite commando force of the Gendarmerie] gives a more dramatic description of Jews forced to pass through tightly structured gauntlets. “They asked if we were Jewish, or just said ‘Jew’ to see how we reacted, they looked in people’s bags to see if they had an Israeli flag, something Jewish. I saw two or three guys really get hit.”

The missing link. And yet it’s so obvious. Of course it was not one incident, not one or even five Hapoel fans, it was Jews in general who were hassled. Libération reports that the kops of Boulogne, who usually pick fights with the banlieusards of the Auteil tribune, forgot their rivalry and went after the Jews. Rumors had circulated that the Betar and the Jewish Defense League were going to arrive in force. Yeah, sure. That’s what the K tribe said when they marched into the Jewish quarter in paramilitary formation. So the skinheads and the punk jihadis had to rough up Jews to prevent a Betar-JDL massacre?

Yanniv Hazout was interviewed on TV. All they showed was his jeans and shoes—Nikes or Adidas, I couldn’t tell. He expressed his gratitude to the policeman who rescued him. Just looking at his shoes you could tell the young man was still in shock from his brush with death. Hazout says Granomort shouted loud and clear that he was a policeman, and ordered the mob to back off. He showed his gun. Someone mocked him, “it’s not a real gun.” They thought they had easy prey, a jackpot, a Black and a Jew. Granomort warned several times before shooting.

Shyeah. That was just like a crowd of New Yorkers shouting at someone in a Red Sox cap at a Yankees game. Well, except for the beatings and the threat of death and the anti-Semitic and racial epithets, of course. But really, it was just like a typical scene in the Bronx. Which I once witnessed, in fact, and saw the police at Yankee Stadium take the New York fan away and arrest him for trying to beat up a Red Sox fan. Compare that to the French riot police standing around and doing nothing, and you have to admit, this situation is just like that fictional Yankee game mentioned in the link above.

Photo One: We give you Gracie, all curled up and happy again. But wait. Her big brother knows she’s there, knows it’s comfortable, and wants to do something about it (Photo Two). Fortunately for our recovering kitty, Meryl saw Tig get ready to push Gracie out of her nest, and spoke loudly and harshly, while grabbing the camera, sensing a major photo op. Tig sulked and retreated, but not before he joined Gracie as close as he dared—and notice the look of annoyance on Gracie’s face. Notice the look of hope on Tig’s.

Photo Three: Free at last, free at last, thank Mom almighty I’m free at last! Gracie goes outside, having been given the green light by the vet, who says eating grass will not hurt her recovering digestive system. But she hasn’t been outside in over a month, so she’s a bit cautious. She’s trying to decide whether or not to jump over the vines and go for the grass. (She did.)

And last, but not least, Mr. Tig, who has not been getting a whole lot of press lately. I’d say he was a bit neglected, except for the fact that he sleeps on the pillow next to me every night, and gets attention last thing before falling asleep at night, and first thing upon waking up in the morning. So he’s not suffering. However, I’ve been mentioning how the winter brings out his ruff even more than usual. Here’s a shot that illustrates his winter ruff fairly well, though I haven’t gotten the perfect shot yet. I can wait.

And there you have the latest edition of Sunday catblogging. Must go submit this to CoTC before I forget.

Let me get this straight.

Abdullah 2.0 is the unelected monarch of a country that has disenfranchised and denied citizenship to over half of the people born in the country, a plantation regime pulled out of Winston Churchill’s bloated ass that is utterly dependent on foreign military subsidies.

Edrogan is the prime minister of the shattered husk of the Ottoman Empire that vehemently denies the genocide of over a million people, is willing to break relations with any country that considers denial of that slaughter to be a crime, and has continued the massacre and oppression of a sizable portion of its own population (including elements of that ethnicity within other countries).

Oh, and both support terror groups that participate in elections in Lebanon on the Palestinian Authority as what they see as a legitimate expression of democracy, but do their best to suppress similar groups within their own countries.

Get this - #1 told #2 that it’s the Israel-Palestinian conflict that’s causing instability within the region.

Not their own bloody-handed behavior. It’s must be the JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS.

Remember, folks. There are people that call these two states moderates. (You already know what the non-moderate states think, or do in place of thinking.)

So the truce is violated not just by Islamic Jihad, which we expected, but by Hamas’ own terrorists, which we did not. Of course, the excuse will arise that they were operating without orders, which begs the question as to why the world seems to think it’s all right to negotiate with a group that orders its “fighters” to launch rockets into Israeli civilian areas, but we already know the answer to that question. Dead Jews matter only to other Jews.

Despite Truce, Palestinian Attacks Go On
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli troops withdrew from the Gaza Strip as an unexpected truce took hold Sunday, but two major Palestinian militant groups, saying they had no intention of stopping their attacks, fired volleys of homemade rockets into Israel.

The rocket attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad tempered hopes for a lasting cease-fire, which was meant to end five months of deadly clashes. The rockets landed in open fields and caused no injuries.

Abbas is playing the usual charade of pretending to do something about the rockets.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered his security chiefs to send their forces to the Gaza border area to prevent further rocket attacks, according to Palestinian security officials.

“The instructions are clear. Anyone violating the national agreement will be considered to be breaking the law,” said Lt. Gen. Abdel Razek Almajaydeh.

And Ehud Olmert is continuing his program of proving to the world that he has no stomach to do what must be done in order to stop the rocket attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered the army to show restraint in the face of the rockets.

“Even though there are still violations of the cease-fire by the Palestinian side, I have instructed our defense officials not to respond, to show restraint, and to give this cease-fire a chance to take full effect,” he said.

A senior Israeli official said Israel would wait a few hours to see if the attacks were isolated breaches or a full-scale violation of the agreement before deciding whether to respond. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Thost quotes are from the AP story. Watch for the headline to change throughout the day into a less negative spin towards the palestinians. Reuters already has it down pat, managing to utterly downplay the cease-fire violations. It takes them five paragraphs before they even notice that the pals are firing rockets.

But here’s the kicker to the story: Avi Dichter, Israel’s Internal Security Minister, says the pals asked for the truce specifically because they’re afraid of the planned Gaza offensive.

Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter said Sunday that the Palestinians declared a ceasefire to prevent Israel from launching a large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip.

Dichter, who spoke while touring the Negev region, said that such operation would “make their lives different.”

During the minister’s meeting with the residents of Kibbutz Nir Am the “Color Red” alert system was activated and an explosion was heard nearby.

“The operation in Gaza was supposed to be approved by cabinet; this was the Palestinians consideration.”

This is the point where I get to say: I told you so. Unfortunately, on both counts. Olmert needs to grow a pair. Israel needs to stop letting the world media influence their actions when it comes to the protection of her people.

It is already four days since Alexander Litvinenko died - a slow and horrible death. And I have already started wondering why…

But here it comes, no worries:

Yesterday an aide to President Vladimir Putin reacted strongly to suggestions of Russian involvement. “We don’t know who killed Litvinenko, but one thing is for sure, it was not the Russian state,” he said. “We’ve got nothing to hide.”

The aide implied Litvinenko’s death was part of a conspiracy by enemies of Putin who had sacrificed one of their own to discredit the Russian president. “If you ask the question who has the most to gain from all this, the answer can only be [Boris] Berezovsky, a man who by his own admission is out on a campaign to discredit Putin and the Kremlin,” he said.

I think that we can mark the first successful move in the eternal Okhranka / CheKa / NKVD / KGB / FSB game “Find The Joo”. Hooray!

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

A cease-fire? I don’t believe it will hold a single day.

Israel accepted a Palestinian cease-fire to go in effect Sunday morning, and will stop military operations in Gaza in return for an end to all Palestinian violence, including rocket fire, tunneling, and suicide bombers, the Prime Minister’s Office announced Saturday night.

The dramatic announcement followed a telephone conversation between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Abbas phoned Olmert and told him that he had received an agreement from all the different Palestinian factions to the cease fire, and in response “requested that Israel would stop all military operations in the Gaza Strip, and withdraw all its forces from there.”

What about Gilad Shalit, who has been a hostage since the summer?

No mention was made in the statement about kidnapped soldier Crpl. Gilad Shalit, whose abduction on June 25th led to the IDF’s stepped-up actions in Gaza.

The agreement, according to Israeli officials, did not apply to military actions in the West Bank. The key now, the officials said, would be to see whether indeed all the different Palestinian factions have signed on - and would honor - the cease-fire agreement.

How is the AP spinning this? By once again blaming the victim, of course. The Israeli offense was in response to the firing of rockets and the murder and kidnap of her soldiers, but you’d never know that if you only read this:

JERUSALEM Nov 25, 2006 (AP)— Israel and the Palestinians agreed to a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip on Saturday to end a five-month Israeli military offensive and the firing of rockets by Palestinian militants into the Jewish state, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Saturday.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed the cease-fire, saying it would take effect at 6 a.m. Sunday.

Abbas telephoned Olmert late Saturday to tell him he had arrived at an agreement with all Palestinian factions to stop firing rockets into Israel from the coastal strip, Olmert spokeswoman Miri Eisin said.

That would be this rocket fire:

Meanwhile Qassam attacks against Israeli towns in the western Negev continued on Saturday. A Qassam rocket fired by gunmen from the northern Gaza Strip landed in greenhouses in Netiv Hasara on Saturday evening.

Hours later two rockets landed in open fields in the western Negev. No one was injured and no damage was reported.

Two rockets fired into Israel Saturday afternoon landed in open fields in the Eshkol community.

Here’s the thing: The terrorists never ask for a cease-fire unless they’re suffering heavy losses. That’s only one of the reasons I don’t believe Israel should stop operations in Gaza. They also never ask for one unless they know that Israel is planning a major offensive. But then, the Israelis constantly give ground on ultimatums. From a press conference today. Yes, today:

The same Egyptian source added that the Hamas delegation asked to Egyptians to contact Israel and find out what is the maximal price it is willing to pay for Shalit.

“The Israelis were very clear and said that the siege would not be lifted before Shalit is released,” the source said.

Either the source is wrong—which is entirely possible—or the Israelis gave ground. I’m thinking it’s probably the latter. And yet, Hamas gets to blame Israel for the impasse in negotiations on the kidnap victim:

Mashaal added that “once must not make a connection between the issue of the establishment of a national unity government and a truce with Israel or Shalit’s release. In terms of the establishment of a unity government there is progress, but Israel is the one opposing the release of prisoners.”

I think the IDF should just go back to the targeted assassination schedule, and start with the Hamas leadership—in Damascus and in Gaza. That stopped them the last time.

If I were someone who only read the headlines, boy, would I think those Israelis are the villains in these pieces.

Hamas Offers Peace Talks for 6 Months

Israel rejects Palestinian peace offer

Meshal: Israel is to blame for lack of progress on Shalit deal

Israel Kills Two Palestinians in Gaza: Medics

Wow. Look at those bloodthirsty Israelis. Hamas offered them a truce, and they told Hamas to go eff off. Then, it’s all their fault that the deal to return their kidnapped soldier fell through. Why, it’s like Israel expects terrorists not to kidnap soldiers, or something! And to top it off, that nameless, faceless “Israel” went and killed two palestinians. A medic said so.

So, let’s take a look at the stories behind the headlines. That “truce” being offered? Not so much.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said armed factions had agreed Thursday to halt rocket fire in exchange for a complete cessation of Israeli military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.

“The ball now is in the Israeli court,” Haniyeh said. “It (Israel) must stop its aggression and escalation against the Palestinian people, then there will be no problem according to what the factions agreed in their last meeting.”

The deal is this: Israel doesn’t get to try to prevent suicide attacks, capture terrorists who are trying to or who already have killed Israelis, find and destroy weapons caches, and prevent terror attacks on her people. In return, the palestinians say they will stop firing rockets—from Gaza, which no longer has a single Jewish citizen—into Israeli territory. There’s also that little issue about palestinian prisoners. Hamas wants them all released, even the ones who are in prison for life for having murdered or conspired to murder Israelis.

Now for the latest truce offering, which is under the bland headline of Hamas Offers Peace Talks for 6 Months. What the headline should actually say is “Hamas threatens uprising if Israel doesn’t fold,” but hey, that’s just me.

Hamas’ leader said Saturday his group was willing to give peace negotiations with Israel six months to reach an agreement for a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, but threatened a new uprising if the talks fail.

The comments by the group’s Damascus-based supreme leader Khaled Mashaal were double-edged. It was the strongest confirmation by the Hamas political chief that the Islamic militant group would allow moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to try to negotiate with Israel. But it was also the first time he has set a deadline with an explicit threat of a new uprising.

“We give six months to open real political horizons … We agreed on the national accord to establish a Palestinian state, with the June 4, 1967 borders,” he told a news conference in Cairo, referring to Israel’s borders before it captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. “They have to seize this opportunity.”

If an agreement is not reached within that time frame, Mashaal threatened a new confrontation with Israel.

“Hamas will become stronger and the resistance will resume … and will go on with a third uprising,” he said.

That word, “resume”—I don’t think it means what you think it means. In order to resume something, it has to have stopped. Hamas has never stopped trying to kill Israelis.

But notice how the AP acknowledges the threat in the lead, but downplays it, and still tries to blame Israel for it. There is a name for asking for something and threatening violence if you don’t get it. It’s called blackmail.

Now to the two palestinians who were killed by “Israel“:

Israeli soldiers clashed with Palestinian gunmen in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing one militant, hospital officials said.