Reuters has a fairly unbiased look at the changes the IDF has made in the past year.

A year after suffering surprise setbacks against Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, Israel’s armed forces are poised once more for a major conventional war.

Tens of thousands of conscripts and reservists have been training with an intensity not seen in Israel for decades, flush with emergency funds from a government which speaks openly of possible new conflicts against arch-foes Syria and Iran.

“An army has two jobs: waging war or preparing for war,” said Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, a career infantryman who took over the military in February with orders to knuckle down on troops perceived as having lost their morale and menace.

This is why I keep saying that Israel is fighting the next war, while Syria, Hezbullah, and Hamas are all fighting the last war. It won’t be a walkover—no war ever is—but this time, the IDF is far more prepared for the tactics that will be used against them.

It’s a worthwhile read.

Five more rockets hit Israel today.

Five Qassam rockets were launched from the northern Gaza Strip towards Israel early Sunday morning.

Four of the rockets landed in open fields, and the fifth landed close to Sapir Academic College near Sderot. One of campus’ buildings, which was under construction, sustained damaged by the attack, however no injuries were reported.

The al-Quds Brigades, the Islamic Jihad’s military wing, claimed responsibility for the rocket attack. Nobody really noticed. And by “nobody” I mean “nobody outside the Israeli press.” They’re too busy blaming Israel for shooting a Hamas propadandist, calling him a “journalist” and issuing statements denouncing the fact that he was shot in the legs while lying wounded.

Funny how these same groups have yet to denounce the Palestinians for driving Palestinian journalists to seek refuge in Norway from their own people.

Seif al-Din Shahin, the correspondent for the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news channel network, left the Gaza Strip together with his family, they said, noting that he had received many death threats over the past few months.

Shahin’s request has yet to be approved by the Norwegian government. Several other Palestinian journalists are also reported to have fled the Gaza Strip out of fear for their lives.

Earlier this year, masked gunmen set fire to the offices of Al-Arabiya in Gaza City, causing heavy damage to furniture and equipment. Although no group claimed responsibility, Palestinian journalists blamed members of Fatah’s armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades.

The group was also responsible for beating Shahin in two separate incidents in 2001 and 2004. The second assault followed Shahin’s live broadcast of a rally held on Fatah’s anniversary. The report angered Fatah leaders who had instructed Shahin and other journalists to report that tens of thousands had participated.

What time is it folks? That’s right. It’s Israeli Double Standard Time, which occurs on every day of the week that ends with a “y.”

This is absolutely precious. In an attempt to smear the U.S., an Iranian editor used a picture of Avigdor Lieberman as a “Muslim” being discriminated against by the U.S.

Is Avigdor Lieberman a “good Muslim”? An Iranian newspaper apparently thought so when they accidentally used a picture of the Israeli minister of strategic affairs to illustrate an article about Iranians being mistreated in the United States.

The article accused the US of discriminating against Iranians living in its territory, citing the example of an Iranian man who was fired from his American job due to his religious beliefs, according to the website Assar-Iran.

Lieberman’s trim beard is what apparently made an impression on the editors of Iranian weekly Ya-Lasrat when they decided to use his photograph in the article “Religious beliefs behind unjust dismissal of another Iranian in the US”.

There’s a picture on the Ynet site. Go look, and laugh.

Say, fellas, it pays to know where you’re getting your pictures from. Perhaps you should have checked with someone who knows how to read Hebrew. Or English.

Say it with me, folks: Schmucks.