Update: Crap. I didn’t notice one of the author’s names. it’s the guy who makes crap up about Israel. Grain of salt warning is now in effect.

To review one of my posts from yesterday: Exit thought: Israel’s recent successful launch of a spy satellite may have had a lot to do with catching this.

From the U.K. Times, today:

The target was identified as a northern Syrian facility that purported to be an agricultural research centre on the Euphrates river. Israel had been monitoring it for some time, concerned that it was being used to extract uranium from phosphates.

According to an Israeli air force source, the Israeli satellite Ofek 7, launched in June, was diverted from Iran to Syria. It sent out high-quality images of a northeastern area every 90 minutes, making it easy for air force specialists to spot the facility.

Putting the pieces together, one at a time. According to the Sunday Times, there was, indeed, a ground force involved.

IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.

At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.

More facts to put together regarding the mysterious Syrian silence. Besides violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty, they are deeply embarrassed on many levels. First, that their new Iranian partners, who generously supplied the funds for the Russian radar and air defense systems, wasted their money—because Israel successfully bypassed the new systems. Iran’s got to be deeply unhappy about this as well. Boots on the ground means Israel is willing to drop soldiers into enemy territory if need be, and the utter success of the mission proves once again that Russian technology is no match for the West, not even after a few years of non-Soviet Union.

Allah’s sharp eyes caught this days ago, but it’s worth mentioning again:

Also on Wednesday, the Lebanese daily Almustakbal reported that since the alleged IAF foray over Syria last week there have been severe disturbances in Lebanese communications systems and cellular frequencies.

That’s some heavy-duty jamming technology going on. Now Iran is going to know what’s coming if the IAF heads their way—but they won’t be able to do anything about it.

Here’s my exit question: Were American pilots involved? Or is Israel simply sharing all the intel?

I was talking to one of my students’ parents today before class, telling her that her son is already proving to be one of the most knowledgeable in my class. She told me he came home last Sunday loving the class. He told her “Mom, you don’t even notice that you’re learning in Ms. Yourish’s class!”

Teachers don’t get compliments much better than that. It’s like pitching a perfect game. In fact, it makes me very happy, because that’s what I’ve been trying to do for five years, and hearing that tells me that I’ve succeeded.

Today, for the third straight class day, the students asked me how long they’d been in class. “An hour,” I told them. They said it felt more like ten minutes. Yep. Things are going well so far.

Every year, I get more and more on my teaching stride. I was a bit worried about this year’s class. They’re a bit, ah, rowdy. Last year, they used to stampede down the hall at the end of every day (except when I was in the hallway to stop them). They’re a little tough to manage sometimes, as they love to talk, well, all the time—but they’re mostly fine.

It’s only been a week, and I’m already falling for my new students, and not really missing my old ones. They’ve moved on. I’ve got a new group of kids to teach, and to learn about, and learn from. Every year, my students surprise me. Every class has its own dynamics and its own unpredictable quirks. The fun, and the challenge, is in figuring them out and working with (or around) them.

Hey there, Andrew Sullivan readers. This story is turning out to be bogus. Read to the end of this post. And check out the main page while you’re here.

Iran is running a TV series about the Iranian ambassadors in France who helped save 500 Jews during the Holocaust.

It is Iran’s version of “Schindler’s List,” a miniseries telling the tale of an Iranian diplomat in Paris who helps Jews escape the Holocaust — and people around the country are riveted, tuning in every week to catch the latest episode.

That’s surprising enough in a country where hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has questioned whether the Holocaust even took place. What’s even more surprising is that government media produced the series, and is airing it on state-run television.

Even without Ahmadinejad’s past comments, the series would be a surprise. The Holocaust is rarely mentioned in state media in Iran, school textbooks don’t discuss it and Iranians have little information about it.

Yet the series, titled “Zero Degree Turn,” is clearly sympathetic to the Jews’ plight during World War II. Scenes show men, women and children with yellow stars on their clothes being taken forcibly out of their homes and loaded into trucks by Nazi soldiers.

The series could not have aired without being condoned by Iran’s clerical leadership. The state broadcaster is under the control of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khomenei, who has final say in all matters inside Iran.

[...] The show’s appearance now may reflect an attempt by Iran’s leadership to moderate its image as anti-Semitic and to underline a distinction that Iranian officials often make — that their conflict is with Israel, not with the Jewish people.

I can’t quite figure out why the mullahs did this, either. If they’re doing it to prove that Iran is not anti-Semitic, they’ve unwittingly done just about the best thing they could possibly have done to make Jews more sympathetic in Israel. And that seems to be how the series is affecting Iranians.

“Once, I wept when I learned through the film what a dreadful destiny the small nation had during the World War, in the heart of so-called civilized Europe,” said Mahboubeh Rahamati, a Tehran bank teller.

Kazem Gharibi said he watches the series every Monday on a TV in his grocery store.

“Through this film, I understood that Jews had a hard time in the war — helpless and desperate, as we were when Iraq imposed war on us,” he said, referring to the 8-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

The series began in April with a love story between Parsa, the Embassy employee, and a French Jew, Sara Stroke, in the early 1940s — and many viewers say the love story pulls them as much as any history.

This is great. An Iranian “Roots” moment. Please allow me to step into Snoopy the Goon mode and thank our Zionist agents in Iranian state TV for making this happen.

Apparently, the AP got everything wrong. A Hot Air reader updates us:

* the major point of the series is that it was allegedly the German Jews themselves who collaborated with Hitler to kill those Jews who opposed the re-settlement of Palestine
* for example, a plot line shows that a Jewish researcher is in possession of documents that prove the connection between Hitler and Zionists
* the credits of each episode feature the work of anti-Semite Roger Garaudy as a “historical source”
* “historical adviser” to the series is Holocaust denier Abdollah Shahbazi who openly admits in his blog that he’s a denier
* director and screenwriter Hassan Fatthi alleged to SPIEGEL that according to “historical evidence” a majority of Hitler’s victims were those who opposed the re-settlement of Palestine

Well, that solves the mystery. The AP probably bought the Iranian propaganda line and didn’t have a Farsi translator check out the show.

Effing morons.

The terrorists in Gaza say they’re going to stop firing rockets at Israel.

Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip agreed on Sunday to stop firing rockets towards Israel, a Palestinian official told Ynet.

The official said the agreement was the fruit of talks between the dismissed Hamas government and representatives of armed groups responsible for daily rocket attacks against the Jewish state.

The official said that the agreement was sped up by the attack on the Zikim military base last week. The attack left 67 soldiers injured and increased public pressure on the government to launch a large-scale military operation in Gaza to halt the attacks.

The official said that the armed groups had been limiting their operations to attacks against Israeli soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip.

Shyeah. Two things about this:

1. It’s bullshit. The Palestinians will use any excuse to break the “truce” that they’re calling, such as the apprehension of a terrorist by the IDF, even if that terrorist is caught red-handed on a “martyrdom” operation.

2. Please note the boldfaced type above. This is an attempt to keep the IDF from finding, killing, and capturing the rocketeers, as well as taking out a substantial amount of terrorist infrastructure in Gaza. It is merely a technical, temporary cessation of hostilities.

Watch for this new “agreement” to break down almost immediately.