The haftarah learning has been moving in fits and starts since last week. I finally found a tutor. Elisson has been helping me with my haftarah these last few days, and boy, have I found a gem of a teacher. He knows his subject, he’s good at it, and he’s good at teaching me how to do it. He adapted his trope pronunciation to the one I’m learning from my former rabbi’s mp3, which is helpful, considering I’ve just learned four different trope pronunciations in less than two weeks. Tonight, I finally figured out something that I’ve been having a lot of trouble with, that should make the lessons go a lot faster. We shall see what happens tomorrow; I am utterly wiped out tonight and need to go to bed. But before I do, I need to keep a promise.

Elisson told me about a cat post he wrote, which seems particularly fitting to my upcoming celebration: His kitty’s Bat Meowzah. (And yes, he does really use the word “Meowftir.” Go click the link, you’ll see.)

And while we’re on the subject of cats, I have some hot-off-the-presses pictures of Tig and Gracie today, and a couple from a few days ago.

Tig will lick Gracie’s ears and head from time to time. It’s a socialization thing with cats, and it’s also a mating behavior. In fact, quite often, Tig will lick Gracie’s ears, then bite her neck and mount her, even though he hasn’t had the stuff he’s needed to do anything since he was about six months old. That’s when Gracie tends to growl and yowl, I tend to yell, and Tig tends to run away. But while I was taking pictures, every time Tig started biting Gracie’s neck, I said, “Leave her!” and he backed off.

The backing off allowed me to get these shots. They look so cute together when they do this. You’d hardly know Tig is just about to beat the crap out of Gracie.

This one is from this morning. I left the door open (it was marvelous out), and the cats went in and out freely, then settled in. Tig decided to do his usual “dead cat lying in the sun” routine. Then Gracie showed up in this perfect little LOLCAT picture. I really think she wants to be an only cat.

“It wuznt me, occifer. I found him lyin there.”

There. Enjoy your kitty post. There’s been enough stress around here to cause a few cases of apoplexy; now we can look at cat pictures and de-stress.

via memeorandum

Coming hot on the heels of reports of dissension in Hezbollah comes the news that not every Palestinian necessarily wishes to live under the PA’s rule.

Mark Mackinnon of the Globe and Mail reports that Some Palestinians prefer life in Israel

Those who live in the neighbourhoods Mr. Olmert spoke of handing over are nonetheless worried that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who is seen as weak and desperate for an achievement after losing control of the Gaza Strip to the Islamist Hamas movement, will accept the offer. They dislike the idea of their neighbourhoods, which are generally more prosperous than other parts of the West Bank, being absorbed into the chaotic Palestinian territories.Mr. Gheit, with two posters of “the martyr Saddam Hussein” hanging over his cash register, can hardly be called an admirer of the Jewish state. But he says that an already difficult life would get worse if those living in Ras Hamis and the adjoining Shuafat refugee camp were suddenly no longer able to work in Israel, or use its publicly funded health system.

The 53-year-old said he’d be happy to one day live in a properly independent Palestinian state, but not one that looks anything like the corruption-racked and violence-prone areas that are split between the warring Hamas and Fatah factions. “I don’t believe in these factions. I only believe in putting bread on the table for my children. I fight only for them. At least in Israel, there’s law.”

This is not a new phenomenon. In 2000 when it was thought that PM Barak and Arafat would still work out a deal that would cede Jerusalem neighborhoods to the PA, the Palestinians living in those areas started applying for Israeli citizenship. This prompted the Mufti of Jerusalem to issue a fatwa against applying.

Israeli media reports today said the number of applications for citizenship had doubled in the past year to more than one-hundred and eighty. An Israeli interior ministry spokeswoman said that twelve-hundred Palestinians from east Jerusalem had been granted citizenship since it was captured by Israel in 1967.

Daniel Pipes reported at the time:

When Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak’s diplomacy raised the prospect, in mid-2000, of some Arab-majority parts of Jerusalem being transferred to the PA, a Palestinian Arab social worker found that “an overwhelming majority” of Jerusalem’s 200,000 Arabs chose to remain under Israeli control. A member of the Palestinian National Council, Fadal Tahabub, specified that 70% preferred Israeli sovereignty. Another politician, Husam Watad, described people as “in a panic” at the prospect of finding themselves under PA rule.

And it wasn’t just limited to Jerusalem:

In the Galilee Triangle, a Palestinian-majority area in the north of the country, just 30% of the Arab population agreed to some of the Galilee Triangle being annexed to a future Palestinian state, according to a May 2001 survey, meaning that a large majority preferred it to remain in Israel. By February 2004, when the Sharon government released a trial balloon about giving the PA control over the Galilee Triangle, the Haifa-based Arab Center for Applied Social Research found the number had jumped to 90%. And 73% of Triangle Arabs said they would use violence to prevent changes in the border.

A Palestinian state sounds great hypothetically. Except to many for whom living in it would mean a lower standard of living.

See also Melanie Phillips, Boker Tov Boulder, To the moon.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Now I know what I’ve been missing.

Maureen Dowd observes today(”Rudy roughs up the Arabs“) that candidate Rudy Giuliani is pro-Israel. And she makes it sound like that’s a bad thing.

Rudy would probably only take the hand of an Arab leader to throw him down a ravine, or a wadi.

It’s really hard to knock the column because she’s correct. Rudy, at least on the face of it, is a pro-Israel candidate. Leave out verbs like “rant” and “preened” and I’d read the column as an endorsement.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Ynet came out with this:

Syrian officials have admitted that the site attacked by the Israeli air force last month was a nuclear facility, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Wednesday.

According to the newspaper, three Israeli diplomats present at a recent United Nations Disarmament Commission meeting overheard the Syrian representative clearly say that Israel’s attack targeted a nuclear facility.

So, from an empty field via an empty building and an agricultural facility (not bombed at all) we have finally arrived to this. Good.

UN Disarmament Commission could write a commendation letter to IAF.

North Korea can start selling a new nuclear starter kit to Syrians. Their diminutive leader can order a new Porsche.

IAF can open that champagne (probably already did).

Baby Assad can relax. For a while.

Can we all be friends now?

Update: a translation error (my foot).

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

The recent deal between Israel and Hezbollah and statements by both Olmert and Nasrallah seem to strongly indicate that any prisoner swap will include Samir Kuntar, one of the most loathsome terrorists in history (despite Israeli denials.)

Kuntar, it will be remembered, murdered a father in front of his four-year old daughter before smashing her skull, among other atrocities. (And this sickening piece of human garbage is also considered a hero to Palestinian Arabs, with the “moderates” demanding his release.)

I am not wise enough to know whether it is worth trading him for Goldwasser and Regev today. I just want to point out that Nasrallah planned the kidnapping of Israelis specifically to get Kuntar in a swap, by his own statements. A prisoner swap would, as always, encourage more kidnappings in the future.

And if Israel would have had the death penalty for uberterrorists like Kuntar back in 1979, the incentive for kidnapping the two Israelis would have not existed - and the Lebanon war may never have occurred.