I’ve noticed a rather deafening silence here lately, a trend that has been going on for quite some time.

Do you all just not want to comment, or are you waiting for me to say something different and new?

‘Cause I gotta tell you, sometimes, I’m all out.

I’m in nothern VA on a weekly basis, often overnight, especially nowadays for some SharePoint training. It cuts into my blogging time (thankfully, Soccer Dad and Snoopy are always here to pick up the slack, and if you’re not reading their blogs, you should be).

I know, I know, I go through this every so often. I know you folks are still reading, and I know how many of you are still reading. (It’s pretty much leveled out for the past year, but at least it’s not going down.) But I have to say, these days, I’m a little unsure of the thoughts of my “invisibles.” (That’s the word I have always used in place of “lurkers,” which is far too negative a term for people who read a blog and don’t comment. Most people who read newspapers don’t write letters to the editor. I don’t see a difference.)

Anyway, if you want me to cover something new, or you’re getting tired of the same-old, same-old—well, then, you wouldn’t be, would you? Or you’d just quit reading, and my stats would go down.

Hm. This requires more thought.

A Sky News reporter interviewed Khaled Mashaal, the man voted most likely to meet a Hellfire missile if he shows his face in a place where the IDF can target him. Carl in Jerusalem has the link; he deserves the traffic. Check it out. Watch it all, and see the lies that they live every day, and realize that there will never, ever, ever be peace with Hamas.

The first terror attack occurring in an area where checkpoints were removed resulted in the death of the terrorist.

A Palestinian who was trying to stab two Israeli hitchhikers was shot dead by one of his intended victims.

One of the hitchhikers Monday near the West Bank town of Shiloh used his gun to shoot the assailant, who was carrying a seven-inch knife. The attacker was pronounced dead at the hitchhiking stand, Ynet reported.

The hitchhikers were 30 and 15.

Two checkpoints around the West Bank town of Jericho, near Shiloh, were removed Monday as part of an agreement reached Sunday between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Jerusalem, The Associated Press reported.

Cause and effect? Yeah, I’m thinking.

By the way, check this out: Rice was “amazed” at Israeli concessions.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was said to be “amazed” by the Israeli gestures promised to the Palestinian Authority on Sunday, an Israeli source reported following a three-way meeting between the secretary, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Ynet has learned that the series of gestures include the establishment of a city or several neighborhoods near the West Bank city of Ramallah, which would be financed by a Jordanian businessman.

I’ll be amazed if the Palestinians use this for anything other than more terror.

When—WHEN is Israel going to say “Enough!” to Ehud Olmert?

Haveil Havalim #160 is up at Life In Israel with an excellent sampling of the best of the Jewish/Israel blogosphere of the past week. Of note are posts about the “burqa babes,” the seven samurai and how Judaism is like the movies. I have a hard time seeing how “The Matrix” has anything to do with Judaism.

AP publishes a press release for Hamas: Exiled leader: Hamas might is ‘humble’.

Khaled Mashaal told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday at his office in Damascus that Hamas’ military capacity is “humble.”"The enemy is exaggerating it in an attempt to justify its aggression and justify more aggression and more brutality,” he said. “Our weapons are humble, but we have great will. This is what makes our action effective.”

Israel launched a military offensive in the Gaza Strip in early March, seeking to quash Hamas militants firing rockets at Israeli towns. More than 100 Palestinians were killed before Israel ended the assault and Egypt began trying to mediate a “tahdiya” or calm.

The “calm” by the way, means that Israel absorbs a few Qassams a day.

Mashaal said Egyptian-mediated talks between Hamas and Israel had snagged on the question of the extent of the tahdiya. Israel proposed a calm only in Gaza, where both sides would stop military operations, but Hamas wants it to also include the West Bank, he said.

Those Israelis, imagine that, demanding that they be allowed to defend their own territory. (Though it appears that they’re willing to contract out more of their antiterrorism efforts to Fatah.)

After allowing for an Israeli statement about the damage that Qassams do, Meshaal continues.

Mashaal expressed concern that Israel and the U.S. are preparing for a regional war.”Israel and America are beating the drums of war in the region. The neo-conservatives in America and Israelis want a new war to overturn the balance of power and achievements gained by the resistance,” he said, referring to his group and Hezbollah.

Neo-conservatives? He must be keeping current with his readings of Walt and Mearsheimer.

Mashaal revealed details on Egyptian-brokered negotiations for a prisoner swap of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Islamic militants in Gaza affiliated with Hamas captured Schalit in June 2006 in a cross-border raid.He said Hamas had agreed with Egypt on the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released — 1,000 — and on the details of the phases of the releases. But he said Israel had held up the deal because it rejects some of the names on the Hamas list on the grounds that they have been involved in attacks on Israelis.

The deal was for a release in staged phases, he said: First, Hamas would hand over Schalit to Egypt, and Israel would release 350 prisoners. Once Egypt handed Schalit over to Israel, another 100 Palestinians would be released, Mashaal said.

So Israel doesn’t just imprison innocent women and children, it also imprisons terrorists (pardon me for not using “militants”) who attack Israel. Actually, Israel has (too often, if you ask me) released terrorists involved in terror attacks. Israel’s red line, for the most part, is whether the terrorist has actually killed anyone.

There’s an incredible chutzpah here. After Hamas made an agreement with Egypt, Israel was expected to go along.

For some reason or the other Israel didn’t accept the terms that Hamas and Egypt worked out, so the further captivity of Gilad Schalit is - Israel’s fault.

Addressing Schalit’s father, who has often appealed to Hamas to release his son, Mashaal said: “Do not blame Hamas, (Israeli Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert is responsible for your son’s detention.” He said Schalit was being well treated.

I don’t know if many people consider being held by hostiles for nearly two years as “well-treated.”

Still in Mideast Openings, David Ignatius believes that Israel could gain a lot from talking to Hamas.

An Israeli who challenges the conventional wisdom about Hamas is Efraim Halevy, former head of his nation’s celebrated spy service, the Mossad. In a March 19 interview on al-Jazeera’s English-language channel, he called for an opening to Hamas to try to reach a cease-fire. “I believe Hamas is a force on the ground. I believe we have to deal with realities,” Halevy told al-Jazeera. “This is the moment to try to engage them and see if some kind of interim arrangement can be found.”Halevy elaborated on his proposal in a telephone interview Thursday. He said that a formal exchange with Hamas around a negotiating table is unlikely; the two sides are too angry and entrenched. What’s possible instead is a “listening dialogue,” in which each side responds indirectly to the other.

Halevy set three conditions for a viable cease-fire: It can’t include the West Bank, where Palestinian security forces aren’t strong enough yet to stop terrorism; it can’t simply be a “momentary pause” that allows Hamas to regroup and rearm for the next round of fighting; and it must include some political discussion about the future, probably conducted through Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

I wonder if “angry and entrenched” are Halevy’s words or Ignatius’s. Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. It doesn’t seek to sabotage peace, it seeks to kill Israelis. Sabotaging peace (such as it is) is just a side benefit.

Of course, what’s interesting is that Halevy’s condition that the “ceasefire” not include the “West Bank” makes it a non-starter for Hamas. Ignatius doesn’t dwell on that.

But my question is: even accepting Halevy’s terms would it, could it work?

Has it worked with Fatah?

Talking with Hamas will have the effect of making Hamas a partner. Hamas will exploit normalization to demand certain terms of Israel. Israel will then either have to accept those terms or play the heavy. Israeli governments seem hesitant to play the heavy.

Or take a different view. Say Hamas despite its “commitment” uses the “ceasefire” to build up its infrastructure. Israel seeing an intolerable situation in the offing targets some buildings in Gaza that are identified as arms depots.

What will happen:

a) The world will agree that Israel had the right to attack Hamas’s infrastructures as Hamas has shown itself to be strengthening itself in violation of their agreement.
b) The media will immediately hyperventilate about the “escalation” due to Israel’s attack; the diplomats will express “concern” about the “cycle of violence; The UN and EU will gnash their teeth about the “heightened tensions” Israel precipitated by its attack; and Secretary Rice will call on both sides to “exercise restraint.”

If you chose “a,” I can only ask, “What color is the sky in your world?” If you chose “b” you know that’s the case because that’s roughly what happened when Israel struck at Hezbollah in 2006. Despite having conformed to the UN and withdrawn its troops behind the international border, Israel suffered cross border attacks from Hezbollah for 6 years, before finally attacking. (Worse, the UN even protected Hezbollah when Hezbollah violated the border and kidnapped and killed three Israeli soldiers.)

Talking to Hamas will have the effect of normalizing the terrorists while tying Israel’s hands from responding to terrorism. It’s a no win situation for Israel.

Ignatius should know better, but time and again he has demonstrated that he’s learned nothing over the years.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Gee, no way this can go wrong:

Under the plan that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced, Israel will remove about 50 roadblocks and upgrade checkpoints to speed up the movement of Palestinians through the West Bank.

The Israelis also will give Palestinians more security responsibility in the town of Jenin with an eye toward looking at “other areas in turn.” They also pledged to increase the number of travel and work permits for Palestinians and to support economic projects in Palestinian towns.

In return, the Palestinians promised to improve policing of Jenin “to provide law and order, and work to prevent terror,” according to a State Department statement.

Yeah, concrete steps in return for a “promise to improve policing” of the town that launches more suicide bombers than any other. And gee, what else will Israel be doing?

-deploying 700 Jordanian-trained Palestinian police in Jenin and allowing them to take delivery of armored vehicles. Jenin is known as a stronghold of Palestinian militants and has been a frequent site of clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen.

-raising the number of Palestinian businessmen allowed into Israel to 1,500 from 1,000.

-increasing the number of work permits for Palestinian laborers by 5,000 from its current number of 18,500.

And what, exactly, are the Palestinians going to do again?

In return, the Palestinians promised to improve policing of Jenin “to provide law and order, and work to prevent terror,” according to a State Department statement.

You mean the way they promised to stop terror attacks, rockets, and mortars?

Oh, yeah. No way this goes wrong.

Erekat: Barak busy planning incursions - Jerusalem Post - March 13, 2008

Meanwhile, The Jerusalem Post has learned that Fraser will not publicize the report on compliance with the road map obligations he was expected to present at Friday’s trilateral meeting.Rather, according to diplomatic officials, Fraser is expected to present each side with his report, and then pass it - as well as the Israeli and Palestinian responses to it - on to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will then decide how to proceed further.

Israel, Russia finalize deal for PA armored cars - Ha’aretz - March 22, 2008

Olmert approved the deal last November, but right-wing parties slammed the decision and military officials criticized the move to permit machine guns to be mounted on the vehicles. As a result, Israel postponed its final approval. The PA wants the armored vehicles to help improve its control over the West Bank and to deter its rival, Hamas.Israeli security sources told Haaretz that the military establishment agreed to let the vehicles be delivered when agreement was reached to forgo the machine guns and to restrict Palestinian police officers to carrying small, personal weapons only. Under the agreement, another 25 vehicles will be stored in Jordan, to be delivered depending on Israel’s satisfaction with how the first round of vehicles are used.

U.S. road map monitors: PA failing in fight against terror - Ha’aretz - March 25, 2008

Specifically, the Americans are concerned that the PA does not engage in the full spectrum of counterterrorism activities, including arrests, interrogation and trial, as it would if it were trying to eradicate the armed wings of Islamic terrorist organizations. Instead, it makes do with trying to “contain” terror - to prevent specific attacks, and to keep Hamas from growing strong enough to threaten Fatah’s rule in the West Bank.The PA security services do occasionally arrest members of Islamic organizations, but they do not then follow up with the other steps in the “chain of prevention”: interrogations, arrests of additional operatives, indictments and trials. Trials generally take place only if the PA is under external pressure, as in the case of the Palestinians who killed two off-duty soldiers out on a hike near Hebron three months ago. And when they do take place, they are generally hasty affairs.

Israel has been complaining about the lack of a “chain of prevention” for years, ever since the second intifada broke out in 2000. Now, it seems that the American monitoring team, headed by General William Fraser, has adopted Jerusalem’s position on this issue. Security coordination between Israel and the PA has deteriorated since the terror attack on Jerusalem’s Mercaz Harav Yeshiva three weeks ago.

Palestinian security officials are angry over what they view as Israel’s lack of faith in them, as reflected in its recent decision to go after four wanted terrorists in Bethlehem itself, rather than informing the Palestinians and letting them try to arrest the men. And while the PA has recently arrested several members of Islamic organizations in the northern West Bank, the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service question the significance of these arrests.

(In the interest of full disclosure, yes the article also mentions that the monitoring team presented questions to Israel about “settlements.”)

Terrorist involved in Passover 2002 Netanya Park Hotel arrested - Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs - March 26, 2008

Now released for publication: In a joint IDF and ISA arrest operation overnight at the Bal’a village near Tulkarm, Omar Jabar, head of the Hamas terror organization in Tulkarm area, was arrested. Jabar has been sought since 2002 for his direct responsibility in carrying out the suicide attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya on Passover, March 27, 2002, in which 30 Israeli civilians were killed and 143 were injured.Jabar recruited the contact that dispatched the suicide bomber, introducing him to the head of the Hamas in Tulkarm at the time, Abed Sayad. Sayad admitted in his investigation that the connection with Jabar had already begun in 1994, when the two were imprisoned together.

Israel to make gestures to Palestinians - AP - March 26, 2008

Israel’s defense minister has agreed to transfer police cars, rubber-coated steel bullets and night-vision equipment to Palestinian security forces, officials said Wednesday.The gestures are meant to help peace efforts by strengthening moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his standoff with the Hamas militant group. But Palestinian officials say the Israeli moves are not nearly enough.

Palestinian carrying two grenades caught at checkpoint - Jerusalem Post - March 26, 2008

A Palestinian was caught at an army checkpoint north of Nablus on Tuesday with two makeshift hand grenades.

(via Yourish)

PA Cops coordinate with terrorists: let them reset bombs in Nablus - Ha’aretz - March 28, 2008 (Hebrew)

“One of the latest reports that infuriated the Minister of Defense came from Nablus, where Israel allowed the [Palestinian] Authority to bring in 500 police to take responsibility for security in the city.According to the report, despite the good intentions of the Palestinian leadership, there is coordination between the police and terror activists. The later neutralize the bombs they have laid when the police tour the casaba and then hook them up again when they leave.”

Translation by IMRA

In Mideast, Rice Urges Cooperation on Security - New York Times - March 30, 2008

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began a trip to the Middle East on Saturday by calling on Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to find ways to improve security in the West Bank for Israelis and to ease roadblocks there that hamper movement for ordinary Palestinians. The goals are not new, but Ms. Rice is hoping that any steps forward on those issues will reinvigorate talks that suffered a setback after a recent outbreak of violence that killed more than 120 Palestinians in Gaza, many of them civilians, and three Israelis during one week.

New steps aimed at reaching Mideast deal - AP - March 30, 2008

Israel pledged to remove some West Bank roadblocks as a start to “concrete steps” in an agreement Sunday with the Palestinians that is aimed at paving the way for a final peace deal this year.”This is a program that will improve the daily lives of Palestinians and help make Israel secure,” the U.S. said.

Under the plan that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced, Israel will remove about 50 roadblocks and upgrade checkpoints to speed up the movement of Palestinians through the West Bank.

The Israelis also will give Palestinians more security responsibility in the town of Jenin with an eye toward looking at “other areas in turn.” They also pledged to increase the number of travel and work permits for Palestinians and to support economic projects in Palestinian towns.

Question from IMRA - March 30, 2008:

Question: Why is it that when the Olmert team sat down with the others to negotiate this announcement that they did not demand that the Palestinians also bring something concrete to the table?Yes - the Palestinians are going to deploy more gunmen - aka policemen. And they said that they are going to make an effort. But while Israel has measurable performance requirements (the number of roadblocks dismantles, for example) the goals for the Palestinians are extremely vague. How about a goal for the number of weapons that they cease and hand over for destruction by a third party? How about a goal for the number of terrorists arrested, prosecuted and sent to prison? (not just stopped for a moment and then sent on their way) ]

Responding to the final effort - Ha’aretz Editorial - March 30, 2008

Abbas’ weakness in the Palestinian community in general and in light of the Hamas military takeover of Gaza in particular has caused Rice to address most of her demands to Israel. Responding to these demands will improve the atmosphere, even if it does not affect the core issues, does not necessarily increase the strength of the moderates vis-a-vis the extremists in Palestinian society and does not lead to unity in the divided Arab world, as reflected by the summit in Damascus.

The absurdity of the situation, as evidenced by IMRA’s question is (even Ha’aretz admits) that Abbas can grant Israel nothing. Therefore the only concrete concessions are demanded of Israel. Israel, despite demonstrating the unreliability of the PA’s security forces continue to bolster those forces and now outsource more of Israel’s security to these thugs. (From the complete MFA press release, it’s clear that Fatah had an interest in stopping Jabar. Plus a related point as if any were necessary from A Blog for All.)

Part of this American’s fault. Sec. Rice has the information that the PA security forces have consistently failed to do the job they are supposed to. (That’s been the case since 1993.) And yet in the name of enhancing Israel’s “security” she insists that Israel trust the PA.

But why doesn’t the Olmert government through Fraser’s report back at the Bush administration? There can be a case for taking certain risks for peace. However trusting the PA’s security is a demonstrated bad risk. The recent evidence suggests that the risk is any better now with Abbas and Fayyad in charge.

Is Israel so scared of being labeled “against peace” that it won’t push back and tell the Bush administration, not only that strengthening the PA’s security forces won’t help Israel, but that it won’t help President’ Bush’s legacy either?

UPDATE: Please see the related post at Fresno Zionism, who writes about the three elephants that Sec. Rice is ignoring.

Here are some of the elephants that Ms. Rice does not see:Hamas
Hezbollah
Iran

Israel Matzav doesn’t ignore another elephant: Fatah corruption.

THE MOST serious scandal involves former PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, who currently heads the Palestinian negotiating team with Israel. According to a document released by PA ambassador to Romania, Adli Sadek, Qurei deposited $3 million of PLO funds into his private bank account.Qurei was forced to publish a strong denial in the Palestinian media. While admitting that he did take the money, Qurei said he transferred the sum to a PLO bank account. He added that the $3m. were part of a $5m. investment that had been deposited in a bank account under Yasser Arafat’s name.

Qurei has also been forced to deny charges that he and his sons own a cement factory that has been supplying concrete for the construction of Israel’s West Bank security fence and new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Israelly Cool! writes about the asymmetries in Israeli gestures to the Palesitnians.

In other words, Israel agrees on a whole range of gestures, including relaxing security measures that have proven to be effective in reducing the number of palestinian terrorist attacks inside Israel, while the PA promises to..try prevent terror. Besides the fact that they supposedly promised to do that at the beginning of Oslo, it is something the success of which can’t really be measured. After all, the palestinians can always claim they have been trying, but haven’t been able to succeed due to any number of factors, all of which are Israel’s fault.

Finally, Boker Tov Boulder adds a different asymmetry that’s more than a little disquieting.

Just one question. Why is it that housing for Arabs is part and parcel of the “peace process,” but housing for Jews is an “obstacle to peace” ??

Finally, Jewish Current Issues demonstrates that in its zeal to move forward, the Bush administration has proven itself positively Clintonesque in its ability to abandon commitments to Israel.

The very essence of the Roadmap was the “constraint of the phases. ” It was precisely the plan’s “sequentiality” that imposed the only discipline possible on the process: no final status negotiations, not even a provisional state, until terrorism was dismantled.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Roee Nahmias is hereby officially pronounced an Apprentice of Juvenile Scorn™ for this story about the PIJ haxxor d00dz incredible hacking skillz.

Islamic Jihad operatives have been able to hack into several Israeli websites, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat reported Sunday.

“The electronic surveillance unit of the media warfare division has been able to hack into several Israeli websites and take them over,” said a statement by the al-Quds Brigades, quoted by the paper.

Wow, that’ sounds pretty scary. What websites did they hack? IAF? IDF? Mossad?

A Ynet probe has revealed at least two websites hacked by the Islamic Jihad – the Kfar Truman and the “High-Tech Motors Body-Shop” websites.

The next sound you hear will be the sound of millions of true hackers around the world snorting with derision. Oooh. A body shop website. The world trembles at the loss of yet another scratch-and-dent repair website, so vital to Israeli security.

And here’s where Roee gets that Juvenile Scorn apprenticeship:

Website defacement of this nature requires only basic programming know-how and usually boils down to changing the main page – a file easy to reconstruct.

[...] A statement by any terror group pointing to a unit dedicated to defacing websites does not necessarily indicate any operational sophistication, since any teenager with basic programming skills can do the same.

[Snicker]

Well done, Roee.

Contents
The Egyptian Israel media bias watcher
Al Jazeera’s Jewish anchor - quits
South African sponsored reconciliation radio

The Egyptian Israel media bias watcher
Adel Darwish wants to change the way Israel is covered in the British media. (h/t ETBuzz)

A new organization seeking to promote accurate and responsible media coverage of Israel in the UK is to be launched in London on Friday.By holding journalists accountable to the principles created by the industry, Just Journalism says it is aiming to promote responsible journalism and fairness in reporting on Israel.

Founded by a group of young professionals with backgrounds in the media, law, public relations and academia who are concerned with the influence of the media and their lack of accountability, the new organization will analyze and monitor press and broadcast coverage of Israel to ensure it adheres to core journalistic principles.

Just Journalism is an independent organization funded by private individuals and led by Egyptian-born journalist and Middle East commentator Adel Darwish.

This is even more surprising.

Darwish brings over 40 years of reporting experience on the region to the group. He was a senior reporter at the Independent for over 10 years and has worked on an array of other newspapers including The Daily Telegraph and The Times. The author of four books, he is a frequent commentator on BBC and Sky News, as well as major Arabic-language, American and Canadian television networks.

He worked for the Independent!

I looked up Darwish, and it turns out that he has a website. I poked around a little bit and found that he isn’t what I expected. Clearly I’d have disagreements with Mr. Darwish, but he writes this:

‘We will only recognise Israel,’ Arabs say, ‘when it returns all occupied Arab land.’ Such health warning attached to the Peace Plan could be for populist demagogic reasons, or, as many believe born of of traditional hostility to the Jewish state. The condition neverthless deflects popular anger, and possible revolt, away from Arab autocratic regimes.Peace packages, by their very nature, are usually subjected to endless the haggling by the Middle Eastern souk mentality. Nearly all Arab officials still reject a public handshake with Israeli officials. The Arabs should develop their Plan innto a Middle Eastern Road Map, of building confidence blocks. It will be slow, and nothing like the dramatic impact of Sadat’s 1977 bold visit to Jerusalem; but modest steps taken, will still be forward on the road to peace and certainly more positive than the current static situation that breeds hatred and wastes valuable resources on arms.

Of course, Arab confidence building measures have been absent in Middle East peace-making. I’m glad to see that there’s someone out there who agrees.

Al Jazeera’s Jewish anchor - quits

A little more than two years ago Al Jazeera English hired an American to be its anchor. In November 2006, Washington Post profiled former Nightline reporter David Marash, who had been hired by the Qatar based station.

In February, Marash, a lifelong broadcast newsman, became the Washington-based anchor of Al Jazeera English (AJE), the English-language spinoff of the Arabic TV news network. When AJE begins its first globe-spanning broadcast today, Marash will be its most prominent American face.Embedded in “why,” however, are two other questions: How can an American work for an operation affiliated with al-Jazeera, which achieved notoriety — and to some, infamy — by airing video communiques from Osama bin Laden, images of dead American soldiers and routine denunciations of the United States? Moreover, how could Marash, who is Jewish, work for an organization that has provided a platform for Holocaust denial and hate speech against Israel, Zionism and Judaism?

But Marash — affable, burly and possessed of gloriously resonant voice — seems almost delighted to be on the defensive. His short, glib answer: He was out of a job.

The Post’s reporter, Paul Farhi, then goes on to describe Al Jazeera , not as a terrorist propagandists, but as a bold new startup.

In some respects, Al Jazeera English will be worlds apart from its established, decade-old sibling. Al-Jazeera focuses primarily on news of the Middle East, for an audience of mostly Arabic-speaking Muslims. AJE will have broader horizons, aiming to draw a billion-plus English speakers from Madagascar to Maine — for Muslims, yes, but also for anyone else who wants another perspective on the day’s news.In other words, AJE — based in the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar — is hoping to become the first non-Western source to challenge the global info-supremacy of CNN and the BBC. This, although it’s not yet available over broadcast frequencies in the United States.

Finally, Farhi gets to the problems with Al Jazeera, at least as claimed by “conservatives.”

Cliff Kincaid, who edits the conservative Accuracy in Media Report, points to troubling connections: Al-Jazeera journalist Tayseer Allouni last year was convicted in Spain of collaborating with al-Qaeda; and al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj was arrested by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2001 and has been held at Guantanamo Bay. (Al-Jazeera says the two men are innocent.)”We haven’t seen any evidence that tells us that [AJE] will be significantly different than al-Jazeera in Arabic,” Kincaid says. “It’s sponsored by the same people, paid for by the same people and has the same editorial philosophy.”

Kincaid all but says Marash is a dupe: “The emir has plenty of Arab oil dollars to buy anyone he wants. They need Western media faces to give them credibility.”

It really shouldn’t be Kincaid’s call, it’s something Farhi could have observed himself. Later he does quote Steven Stalinsky from MEMRI, which he describes as “moderate.”

(On its Web site, MEMRI catalogues al-Jazeera’s news coverage into several telling categories, such as “Anti-Semitism,” “Conspiracy Theories,” “Suicide (Martyrdom) Operations,” “Holocaust Denial.”)

However, at the time, David Marash claimed to know better.

“Al-Jazeera is one of the most positive and significant cultural events in the Arab world in centuries,” he declares. Unlike state-controlled media throughout the Arab world, he says, al-Jazeera regularly broadcasts dissent and opposing points of view, providing “the broadest spectrum of argument” that many Arab viewers have seen.”Do they broadcast hate speech?” he asks. “Yes, they do. Is it put in context and is it discussed as hate speech? Yes, it is. Hate speech is part of the dialogue of the Middle East. To censor or to exclude it would be to lose all credibility” among al-Jazeera’s viewers, he says.

Well now, nearly two years after the taking the job (noted elsewhere too), David Marash has quit Al Jazeera.

Former “Nightline” reporter Dave Marash has quit Al-Jazeera English, saying Thursday his exit was due in part to an anti-American bias at a network that is little seen in this country.Marash said he felt that attitude more from British administrators than Arabs at the Qatar-based network.

Marash was the highest-profile American TV personality hired when the English language affiliate to Al-Jazeera was started two years ago in an attempt to compete with CNN and the BBC. He said there was a “reflexive adversarial editorial stance” against Americans at Al-Jazeera English.

“Given the global feelings about the Bush administration, it’s not surprising,” Marash said.

Nice soundbite David. It really helps boost your objectivity quotient. Maybe Al Arabiya or Press TV have openings.

South African sponsored reconciliation radio

AP reports on a new radio station based in Ramallah and Jerusalem sponsored by a Jewish South African businessman intended to bridge gaps between Israelis and Palestinians.

But now RAM-FM, owned by Jewish businessman Issy Kirsh in South Africa, has greater ambitions. Modeled after a South African station that provided a venue for reconciliation after apartheid, RAM-FM wants to create a safe place for Israelis and Palestinians to talk, and make money in the process.

It’s Almost Supernatural points out that Mr. Kirsh has been vilified by South Africa’s Muslim lobby. He also points out that the station on which Ram FM is based has some pretty strong words about Israel in its editorial content. (He limits the critique to opinions on 702, not the news.)

I hope it’s not an exact model of 702. Yusuf Abramjee, the 702 station manager, (and group head of news and programming for Primedia Broadcasting) is far from a neutral and objective observer when it comes to the Middle East. He has penned a number of anti-Israel articles including one which concluded in no uncertain terms that Israel is an apartheid state and should be condemned.

Crosspoted on Soccer Dad.

Sorry. I’m in the middle of my Battlestar Galactica marathon.

Talk among yourselves.

Just in time for me to catch up before Season Four begins, I treated myself and bought a big-screen TV and got HDTV and the Sci-Fi Channel.

Y’know, I didn’t care much for the remake when I saw the miniseries all those years ago. But I borrowed Season One from a friend, and it sort of grows on you. So I bought Season Two, and was utterly hooked. Been waiting for Three to get here for a while—it’s months later than it should have been, but at least they stopped doing that stupid “2.0″ and “2.5″ crap. Season Three is all in one package. I have that, and Razor (extended edition, of course, though I’m going to take a wild guess that some of the “SCENES WE COULDN’T SHOW ON TV!” are between Kain and Six. Yawn.), which I’ll get to after I get through all of Three.

I should also like to point out that the guys from Circuit City did a great job hooking up the new set. Delivered it first thing in the morning, hours earlier than I thought they would, and put all the wires and cables right, and got me started. Comcast totally screwed everything up, so I was on the phone for an hour last night unattaching and re-attaching cables, and we won’t talk about the two trips to the Comcast center to get a box that worked with my HDMI cable. Or the fact that the box I did get finally still had hours of the previous customer’s recordings on it, puzzling me to no end as to how Comcast knew I watched ABC soaps, and why they were pre-set to record for me. Especially as I’ve given them up again to regain a little more time in my life.

The thing I can’t figure out is how to program only the channels I want to run through. But that’s because I haven’t really sat down with the manual yet. I want to set all the HD stations that I will actually watch (forget about HD Travel Channel, who the hell cares?), and, oh, yeah—I have to get a new DVD player. Mine’s too old to show anything above 480i. I know this because the TV tells me so when I try to complain to it that my DVD output sucks. (The upgraded cables didn’t do it, Chris, it’s at least eight years old, and maybe ten, so it’s pre-HD.)

I think I’ll buy a DVD/VCR recorder if I can find a decent one that’s not too expensive.

I have to say, I am really happy with my new TV. When the Circuit City guys came to set it up, they were trying to figure out how to center it in the living room. “Oh, no,” I said. “See that chair?” [Points to The Chair That Swallows You Whole, the overstuffed leather chair on the other side of the room] “That’s where I watch TV. Center it on that.” They laughed, and did.

As for the rest of you, well, tough. It’s my living room, and my TV. Guests are just going to have to suffer on the sofa. Okay, maybe I’ll share the chair sometimes. If I really like you.

Next on my wishlist: My own living room, in my own condo or townhouse, to put it in. There’s another development going up about halfway between my and Sarah’s house, not too far away from where I am now, that I might be moving to by next year. It’s right near 288, so it doesn’t really extend my commute to northern VA on Mondays.

I’m still in shock. There’s no buyer’s remorse at all. Probably because this is the first big-ticket item I’ve bought since I bought my car, and that was back in 2000. I think I’m due.

It’s good to have a good job. And to have money again.

Hamas is slowly but surely dropping the last of the mask of pretending that they want peace with Israel.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers on Friday called on the leaders of Arab nations to drop their proposal for a comprehensive peace deal with Israel, and support the militant group’s battle against the Jewish state instead.

[...] Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya said Israel would only respond to violence, and encouraged others to join it.

“Cut all ties with Israel, withdraw the Arab initiative,” he shouted. “The Zionist enemy doesn’t have a vision of peace. Only force… fighting and holy war works with (Israel.)”

And oh yeah—they told Arab leaders to STFU about kassam rockets murdering Israeli civilians.

Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal has called on the leaders of Arab states not to criticize the Qassam rocket fire on Israel during the Arab Summit scheduled to begin in Damascus on Saturday.

In the letter published Friday morning by the London-based Arabic-language al-Hayat newspaper, the Hamas leader defended the Palestinian organizations’ use of the rockets, claiming that this was “a limited weapon”.

[...] “We have no other choice but to note that the Gaza missiles and the limited weapons the Palestinian resistance possesses are aimed at defending our people and our land.

“This weapon is a response to the occupation and aggressiveness. Nevertheless, all the Palestinian resistance factions have expressed their willingness to take the truce issue seriously.”

Say, about Hamas taking that truce seriously? Not so much. Because every time Hamas says they’ll consider a truce, they insist on it being a complete and total surrender of Israel’s ability to stop terror attacks.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad have informed Egypt that they are only prepared to accept a truce with Israel on condition that it include the West Bank, as well as the Gaza Strip, sources close to the Palestinian groups said Thursday.

And gee—the other terrorists don’t want peace, either.

Thursday’s meeting apparently ended without an agreement after the Egyptians told Hamas and Islamic Jihad representatives that Israel had rejected their demand to include the West Bank in the truce.

While all this is going on, Hamas is busy smuggling longer-range rockets into Gaza, as well as blueprints for longer-range rockets and terrorists trained in Iran. The next war is going to be ugly, ugly, ugly. There are going to be many Israeli civilian casualties. And the really sad thing about it is that so many people out there are going to be happy that Israel finally “got theirs.”

I am not feeling very good about this summer. I think Iran is about ready to make its move.

The worst-case scenario—the deaths of dozens of children—just missed becoming a reality today.

Three Qassam rockets were launched from northern Gaza towards Israel on Friday by noon, with one of the rockets narrowly missing a nursery in Kibbutz Nir Am. The rockets were fired several short hours after IDF soldiers killed a Hmas gunmen in an exchange of fire in southern Gaza.

The nursery in question is intended for toddlers aged one and half to two. The nurse for the children’s homes, Orna Schwartz, told Ynet of the ordeal: “The children were in the yard when the rocket alarm sirens sounded. We rushed to bring them into the bomb shelter and then we heard a loud explosion.”

A near-miss is almost as good as a hit, though. Guaranteed the pals are recalibrating their missile launchers for this one.

“All the windows shattered, pictures fell from the walls and there was a great panic. We have a fortified roof but not full reinforcement,” said Schwartz, adding that it was a miracle no one was wounded.

“We were very fortunate that none of the children were injured but they were very frightened. This is the reality they have to deal with,” she said.

So how does the AP cover this story?

In a related development, a Palestinian militant was killed and two were injured in a clash with Israeli forces on a raid in the southern Gaza Strip Friday, the military said. Palestinian medics confirmed one man was killed. Hamas claimed the dead man as a member, but local residents said he was not a fighter.

Right. Ignore it. Kassams have been flying every day during the s-called “lull,” and yet, the AP picks up only on the deaths of “militants.” These “militants” are the men responsible for creating, importing, and smuggling the rockets that nearly killed Israeli babies in a nursery today. But that angle isn’t important to the world media.

James D Besser reports:

Almost a year after reports of an “alternative AIPAC” emerged in the middle of the Jewish political world, many of the same players are on the verge of announcing a revised initiative intended to get the message to politicians that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is not the only pro-Israel voice in town, The Jewish Week has learned.

The invitation reads:

“For too long, the loudest American voices in political and policy debates have been those on the far right — often Republican neoconservatives or extreme Christian Zionists,” according to the invitation. “J Street aims to change that. We are the first and only lobby and PAC (political action committee) dedicated to ensuring Israel’s security, changing the direction of American policy in the Middle East and opening up American political debate about Israel and the Middle East.”

Those involved include:

The J-Street board of advisers includes a number of lay and professional leaders of Americans for Peace Now (APN), including CEO Debra DeLee, as well as Marcia Freedman, founder and former president of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom. Several activists with ties to Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama are on the panel, as well. They include Robert Malley, whose involvement in Obama’s broad foreign policy advisory team has generated criticism from Republicans and some pro-Israel groups, and Alan Solomont, a top Obama fundraiser and major player in Democratic politics. Also on board: David Kimche, a former deputy chief of the Mossad and a member of the advisory council of the Israel Policy Forum (IPF) — another pro-peace process group that was connected with last year’s efforts but which, several source say, is not directly involved in the current project.

Besser cites an incident from 1988 where several Jewish groups disagreed with AIPAC’s decision to fight giving Yasser Arafat a visa to speak to the UN. (AIPAC[’s position prevailed and Arafat gave his speech in Geneva.) What’s hard to see is why AIPAC was wrong then. Arafat gave a phony speech in which he supposedly renounced terrorism and accepted Israel’s right to exist. The speech, in fact, did neither. And Arafat went to his grave never actually renouncing terrorism in anything other than words. If this is the example the new group wishes to use to show that AIPAC is somehow shortsighted, it’s a bad example. And of course the new group pre-emptively attacks its critics.

It also faces a political challenge because “AIPAC has been recognized by non-Jewish politicians as the voice of the Jewish community,” he said. An alternative voice “may be hard to sell to non-Jewish politicians who don’t want to be tarred as anti-Israel.” Jews on the left, he said, are less likely to put Israel-related politics at the top of their list of giving priorities – something AIPAC supporters and supports of pro-Israel political action committees have traditionally done.

Actually, being pro-Israel isn’t a Jewish issue, it’s an American issue. Polls have consistently shown that most Americans are pro-Israel as opposed to pro-Arab or pro-Palestinian. The groups involved the new lobbying group are similar to the Israel Policy Forum which ran a poll in 1997 alleging that most American Jews supported the United States putting “moderate” political pressure on Israel to compromise with the PA. (Daniel Pipes analyzes that poll along with one from his own organization here.) The results of that poll played a role in undermining American political support for the Netanyahu government by the Clinton administration. It had the effect o strengthening Arafat and the PA. Again, I suspect the organizers of this new lobbying group see nothing wrong with that. However bolstering Arafat at the expense of the Israeli government cannot be viewed as supporting Israel. Those involved in the group include someone who supported the Geneva initiative. The Geneva initiative was a foreign effort - with scant support from the Israeli public - to pressure the Israeli government to make wide ranging concessions to the PA. This new group may call themselves pro-peace. Maybe they are. I doubt it, because they absolve the PA for nearly all of its bad faith and support of terror. However, one thing it is not is pro-Israel. It is anti-Iserael.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Say, you know that “apartheid wall” that people keep telling Israel isn’t working, won’t work, can’t work, and needs to be pulled down?

The terrorists say it’s working.

PIJ leader Ramadan Abdallah Shalah was interviewed in Damascus by the Qatari newspaper Al-Sharq. He said that the second intifada was currently characterized by rocket fire , which had replaced the previous stage of suicide bombing attacks. That, he said, was because the enemy [i.e., Israel ] had found ways and means to protect itself from such attacks: “… For example, they built a separation fence in the West Bank . We do not deny that it limits the ability of the resistance [i.e., the terrorist organizations] to arrive deep within [Israeli territory] to carry out suicide bombing attacks , but the resistance has not surrendered or become helpless, and is looking for other ways to cope with the requirements of every stage [of the intifada]…” (Al-Sharq, March 23, 2008 ).

And that wasn’t the only instance. Read the rest.

Lately the Investigative Project has put CAIR under the microscope to show that it isn’t simply a civil rights organization, but rather a front group for terrorist organizations. The latest report shows the criminal activity of a number of former CAIR officials.So now news comes that a CAIR official in Michigan served to funnel funds from Saddam to three congressmen who traveled to Baghdad in 2002 to make a case against invading Iraq. These guys were - whether they knew it or not - Saddam’s stooges.

Michelle Malkin recalls that Stephen Hayes had figured out that Saddam had likely financed the trip back in 2003.

McDermott, Thompson and Bonior were, I suppose, the best politicians Saddam could buy.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

I’m coming a bit late to the discussion about Sen. Obama and “Tony” McPeak.For a good background check out memeorandum.

Of course McPeak’s assertion that the US government couldn’t achieve peace in the Middle East because of the populations of New York and Miami isn’t just a slur. It’s false. I know I’m Jewish and have been greatly opposed to the peace processing (as opposed to peace) over the past 15 years (or more), but there’s no evidence that any American administration has held back because of me or other like minded Jews.

Mere Rhetoric found another Obama adviser with less than favorable view towards Israel, former Amb. Dan Kurtzer. In statements to Ha’aretz, Kurtzer lauded the peacemaking efforts of Pres. Carter and Sec. Baker.

But as Daled Amos pointed out it’s not one or another, it’s (seemingly) all of Sen. Obama’s advisers.

McPeak is not the only member of the Obama campaign who holds such twisted views. Others such as Robert Malley or Zbigniew Brzezinski have found themselves downgraded to “informal” advisers as their anti-Israel views are made public. Samantha Powers was dismissed for calling Hillary a monster, not for sharing McPeak’s belief in the malign omnipotence of the “Israel lobby.”Obama has a Jewish problem and McPeak’s bigoted views are emblematic of what they are.

Jennifer Rubin says similarly,

You see, Obama is not responsible for Reverend Wright or Tony McPeak. But what about Samantha Power, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Robert Malley? Isn’t it reasonable to ask “Why does Barack Obama have so many foreign policy and national security advisers whose statements about Israel and American Jews are problematic? ” Apparently we should not hold him responsible for selecting these individuals, nor attribute any of their views to him. And we shouldn’t be bothered either, I suppose, by his own comment that “nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.”

Marc Aminder (via memeorandum) defends Sen. Obama.

Tony McPeak is an adviser to the Obama campaign, and he is verbose and colorful enough that Obama’s press team likes to use him as a surrogate. McPeak happens to have some very strong opinions, one of them being the clumsily coded belief that New York Jews are responsible for the United States’s locked-in alliance with Israel, which McPeak seems to believe is damaging. To hold Barack Obama personally responsible for McPeak’s views — which is the consequence of an argument that uses McPeak along to make the case that Obama has a Jewish problem — is simply not logical.

“[C]lumsily coded belief?” I think that’s pretty significant. And what’s not logical about it? I don’t remember these revelations about McPeak during the 2004 election, so I don’t how it’s relevant to Howard Dean. (Though Howard Dean has some interesting ideas of his own about Jews.) Nor do I understand how Ambinder compares McPeak’s relationship to Sen. Obama with Rev. Hagee’s to Sen. McCain. One is an adviser, an actual part of a campaign; the other endorses from the outside.

Ambinder does allow that Rev. Wright is a problem though. So wouldn’t the presence of people like Malley or McPeak in the campaign serve to further confirm that Sen. Obama’s choice of pastor wasn’t just careless but also a considered choice?

Finally Ambinder argues that Sen. Obama doesn’t have a Jewish problem because the polls don’t show it.

To close off this post with some substance, Gallup finds that Obama and Clinton are splitting the Jewish vote, hardly evidence that Obama currently has a “problem” with Jews.

Yes, Jews tend to be more liberal than the American population as a whole. Many don’t look at or simply dismiss these charges. That doesn’t mean that Sen. Obama doesn’t have a problem. And that’s all the more reason to make these arguments.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Say, remember when I wrote about a call for revenge by a rabbi that the world media mostly ignored?

“The biggest revenge on the goyim is for them to see how much God loves the people of Israel,” Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said Thursday at a mass memorial service held for the eight victims of last week’s terror attack at the Mercaz Harav rabbinical seminary in Jerusalem.

That was the Shas spiritual leader. And the Chief Rabbi had this to say:

Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger said during the ceremony that “we hear calls that are not in line with the way we were brought up. Underground organizations of any kind are unwarranted, according neither to the Halacha nor to any other worldview. The call should be aimed at the government and the prime minister, to do everything so that the killers and their friends are brought to justice, literally.”

Two very important spiritual leaders of the religious Jews of Israel telling their followers that exacting revenge personally is wrong. These statements go almost completely unnoticed by the world press. But these? These go viral.

Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of the northern town of Safed and the son of a former chief rabbi of Israel, issued the call in a newsletter distributed to synagogues around the country.

“A country that really cares about its citizens should hang the 10 sons of the terrorist from a high tree,” he wrote, quoting the biblical Book of Esther. The original text referred to the book’s villain, Haman, who plotted to kill all the Jews in Persia before he was foiled.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Eliyahu said he was using the reference as a “metaphor,” but said he supported taking revenge against people who attack Jews. “I don’t apologize for anything and stand behind everything I wrote,” he said.

Tensions already were high before the harsh comments by Eliyahu, a relatively mainstream rabbi.

What a load of crap. Two of the most important rabbis in Israel specifically do not call for revenge, and the press leaps on the case of a much less important rabbi, and pumps it up to make it look like the Israelis are as bloodthirsty as the Palestinians. Moral equivalence and hypocrisy of the highest order are in evidence. And it gets worse, because Rabbi Eliyahu was not calling for personal revenge. He was calling for the state to punish the organizations responsible for the terror attack. But only the Israeli press carries those quotes—not the AP, which is spreading yet another negative story about religious Jews.

“We have to take horrible revenge for the terrorist attack at Mercaz Harav Yeshiva,” Eliyahu said.

“I’m not talking about individual people… I’m talking about the state,” he continued.

“[The state] has to hurt them to the point where they scream ‘Enough,’ to the point where they fall flat on their face and scream ‘help.’

Once again, the AP proves it will go to any lengths to blacken Israel’s name, all the while whitewashing the depravity of the Palestinians, who held all-night celebrations on the night of the terror attack, and gave out candy in honor of the murder of seven teens and a 26-year-old man. Does it mention that in this article? No. Instead, we read this:

There has been a chorus of calls for revenge since the March 6 attack, in which a lone Palestinian gunman entered the library of the Mercaz Harav seminary and opened fire, killing eight young students and leaving a scene of bloodstained holy books before he was shot dead.

Just after the attack, hundreds of Jewish seminarians gathered outside the yeshiva and chanted: “Death to Arabs.” Days later, a group of mourners marched toward the home of the Palestinian shooter, smashing car windows before being stopped by police.

As if this is the equivalent of Palestinians smiling, celebrating, and whooping it up over the murders of children.

I’m beginning to wonder why any Jew would work for the wire services at all.

So let’s see what the Palestinians sent out of Gaza yesterday.

Mortars:

Palestinians fired five mortar shells from the Gaza Strip into the Eshkol area in the western Negev on Tuesday.

The shells fell in agricultural areas in one of the kibbutzim in the region.

There were no reports of wounded or damage.

Bombs:

Palestinians detonated a bomb next to the Gaza border fence on Tuesday night.

No one was wounded and no damage was reported.

Kassams:

Two Kassam rockets fired from northern Gaza landed in the Sha’ar Hanegev region on Tuesday.

No one was wounded and no damage was reported.

But there is a “lull.” A “calm.” And if Israel sends in troops to try to stop mortars, kassams, and bombs from being used against Israelis, the news media will scream in unison that Israel is “violating” the “calm.”

Because for some reason, incoming artillery, rockets, and bomb attacks don’t seem to count. Only outgoing defensive measures against them.

And there were two more kassams today, scoring a direct hit on a kibbutz, followed by Palestinians deliberately shooting at Israeli farmers. Funny how that never seems to get the same attention as the twice-killed 65-year-old Palestinian farmer.

Two Qassam rockets fired from northern Gaza landed in Kibbutz Mefalsim in the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council Wednesday morning, causing damage to several buildings.

Shortly afterwards, Palestinian gunmen opened fire at farmers in the fields of Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. No injuries were reported.

What time is it, folks? That’s right. It’s Israeli Double Standard Time. But don’t worry, it only occurs on days that end with a “y.”

An Israeli company has developed a cellphone that’s made it to Guinness book of World records as the smallest and lightest cellphone.Phone magazine describes it like this:

The idea of having a single cellular handset that can serve multiple duties giving wireless data access to a variety of modular devices isn’t new, but modu are hoping to be the first to market with a working implementation of the concept. Their modu unit is a compact cellphone of unknown technical specs (though I’d presume HSDPA or some sort of high-speed wireless in order to make the whole deal worthwhile, together with a fair chunk of memory) that can be slotted into laptops, car stereos and larger phone/tablet devices as appropriate.

Slashgear has more:

The Modu is based on a module interchanged ‘jackets’ concept that turn a tiny cell phone into a fully functional phone or gadget that enabled internet features. The company is expected to launch the modu In Italy, Russia and Israel on October the 1st, then probably in US next year. A Modu with two jackets bundle is estimated to sell around $280.

The company’s website informs us:

modu was established in early 2007 by Dov Moran, founder and CEO of msystems (NSDQ:FLSH), inventors and leaders of the USB flash drive market (DiskOnKey™), FlashDisk (DiskOnChip™) and other ground-breaking products. A seasoned team comprised of executives and managers from msystems, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, Motorola, Qualcomm, Intel, SanDisk, Symbian, Marvell, Orange and other leading companies allows modu to offer a unique blend of experience and unrivaled expertise in the mobile and consumer electronics arenas. modu has already developed key relationships with leading partners and manufacturers and has raised significant initial funding from a distinguished group of financial institutions and strategic investors.

Pretty neat especially as we’re now seeing commercial with a laptop getting pulled out of a manila envelope.

UPDATE: I didn’t have time before to point out that there’s an Israeli connection to the MacBook Air. The ad for it features a song by Yael Naim. (h/t Digital Irony, Rubicon3)

What I’ve also discovered is that modu has released an ad showing the functionality of its new phone.

Plus here’s an interview with modu’s founder Dov Moran.

Maybe in a few years the first thing you see when heading to luggage claim at Ben Gurion Airport will no longer be the big NOKIA name, but homegrown modu instead.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I had a hard time understanding this:

Israel will transfer to the Palestinian Authority 25 armored vehicles from Russia for use in PA controlled areas of Judea and Samaria. Permission for the transfer was granted by the Olmert government during a high-level meeting Thursday night.

The article goes on to report that the transfer was only approved once Russia agreed not to arm the vehicles with automatic weapons.

I found this interesting.

An additional 25 will be supplied if the first shipment is “properly used,” Israeli officials said.

What are the chances of that happening? I’d guess: not very good.

Specifically, the Americans are concerned that the PA does not engage in the full spectrum of counterterrorism activities, including arrests, interrogation and trial, as it would if it were trying to eradicate the armed wings of Islamic terrorist organizations. Instead, it makes do with trying to “contain” terror - to prevent specific attacks, and to keep Hamas from growing strong enough to threaten Fatah’s rule in the West Bank.The PA security services do occasionally arrest members of Islamic organizations, but they do not then follow up with the other steps in the “chain of prevention”: interrogations, arrests of additional operatives, indictments and trials. Trials generally take place only if the PA is under external pressure, as in the case of the Palestinians who killed two off-duty soldiers out on a hike near Hebron three months ago. And when they do take place, they are generally hasty affairs.

Israel has been complaining about the lack of a “chain of prevention” for years, ever since the second intifada broke out in 2000. Now, it seems that the American monitoring team, headed by General William Fraser, has adopted Jerusalem’s position on this issue.

Security coordination between Israel and the PA has deteriorated since the terror attack on Jerusalem’s Mercaz Harav Yeshiva three weeks ago. Palestinian security officials are angry over what they view as Israel’s lack of faith in them, as reflected in its recent decision to go after four wanted terrorists in Bethlehem itself, rather than informing the Palestinians and letting them try to arrest the men. And while the PA has recently arrested several members of Islamic organizations in the northern West Bank, the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service question the significance of these arrests.

So Israel has a demonstrated “lack of faith” in the Palestinian security services and yet agrees to upgrade their capabilities.

The Ha’aretz article also reports:

With regard to Israel’s obligations, the Americans recently gave both the government and the defense establishment a list of 10 questions concerning outposts, settlement construction and other issues. Associates of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have been harshly critical of Jerusalem’s failure to evacuate outposts, remove roadblocks and take other measures to improve the PA’s economy, such as establishing industrial parks along the seam between Israel and the West Bank.

Those industrial parks are nice idea, but though they worked well in Gaza for awhile, they are now shut down. The success of the industrial parks will depend on the will of the Palestinians to live in peace with Israel.

And despite the way the American demands are presented, as reported last year, they are not without risks. Indeed.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Say, you know those “humiliating” checkpoints that everyone says Israel should remove? The ones that are only preventing peace, not helping it?

Shyeah.

A Palestinian was caught at an army checkpoint north of Nablus on Tuesday with two makeshift hand grenades.

The grenades were detonated by a sapper.

Nablus is one of the areas that the Palestinians are supposed to be policing. Because they’ll stop things like this from happening.

Shyeah.

I had missed this article, Saddam collected information on dozens of potential targets in Israel.

Saddam Hussein’s intelligence service collected information on dozens of sites in Israel, including airports, other transportation centers, as well as scientific and religious centers that were thought to be potential targets for attacks.Among the sources providing intelligence to Saddam’s regime was Force 17, the security force of Yasser Arafat, which planned and carried out from its Ramallah headquarters attacks against Israeli targets.

This information emerged following the release of documents captured during the American invasion in 2003 and made available as part of a West Point program to evaluate the lessons of the war in Iraq.

In addition to the detailed collection of intelligence on potential Israeli targets, the documents also show that Saddam’s intelligence was following closely the links between Iran and Hezbollah and the potential that such ties could provide Iran to operate in the territories and in North Africa.

And remember Dr. Rantisi, a head of the “political” arm of Hamas?

Hamas representatives, including Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who was assassinated by the Israel Defense Forces in 2004, contacted Iraqi intelligence and asked to coordinate attacks against American and Israeli targets to delay the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Israel wasn’t his only target either:

A video recording of a meeting between Saddam and Yasser Arafat on April 19, 1990, showed Saddam threatening to assassinate then president George Bush. “We may not be able to reach Washington, but we could send someone with an explosives belt to Washington,” Saddam told Arafat, three months before the invasion of Kuwait.”We can send people to Washington. A man with an explosives belt could throw himself on Bush’s car.”

Saddam also told his Palestinian guest that he intended to launch surface-to-surface ballistic missiles against Tel Aviv and that he possessed chemical weapons that “have been successfully employed” against Iran - and he would not hesitate to also use them against Israel.

Remarkably, such revelations are getting very little coverage. I guess it’s more important to focus on the effects of the war than on what was possibly prevented.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

We noted the other day that allied forces have been wreaking havoc with the PR arms of Al Qaeda.In turn this has contributed to a decrease in the number those volunteering to fight the infidels in Iraq.

So the al Qaeda recruiter, often working out of a local mosque, makes a free trip to Iraq, ending in a glorious death for the cause, sound like a solution. But over the last year, the number of such volunteers has declined from 120 a month, to about 40. The main reason for this is bad news, and some survivors, coming back from Iraq. Not many of these losers make it back, but the word gets on to the Internet, and this has caused quite a commotion on pro-terrorist web sites and message boards. There’s also been a sharp drop in pro-terrorist combat videos coming out of Iraq. This is largely due to the death or capture of the people responsible for getting those videos onto the Internet.

If you can’t romanticize self-destruction you won’t have a lot of volunteers for suicide missions.

Of course it’s not only the true believers who help recruitment efforts, it’s also the media! The Washington Times reports on a new study:

Periods of intense news media coverage in the United States of criticism about the war, or of polling about public opinion on the conflict, are followed by a small but quantifiable increases in the number of attacks on civilians and U.S. forces in Iraq, according to a study by Radha Iyengar, a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in health policy research at Harvard and Jonathan Monten of the Belfer Center at the university’s Kennedy School of Government.

Abe Greenwald observes:

But maybe the media executives who’ve been so eager to run photos of flag-draped coffins and the journalists who start each day thinking of a fresh way to cover America’s demise could keep this in mind.Particularly now. We are in the midst of a “five years on” media riot. The number 4000 is suddenly everywhere. Yes, a free press is a cornerstone of our democracy. But it shouldn’t be exploited for the sole purpose of lamenting out military efforts. The success of the troop surge was barely acknowledged for half a year, and yet the 4000th U.S. casualty in Iraq made it into the headlines at the speed of light.

Of course if Katharine Graham’s 1986 essay about freedom vs. terror is any indication, we should simply trust the media to do the right thing.

These problems of covering terrorism are serious. But in spite of them, I believe the benefits of full disclosure far outweigh any possible adverse consequences. I believe the harm of restricting coverage far surpasses the evils of broadcasting even erroneous or damaging information.American democracy rests on the belief, which the centuries have proven true, that people can and do make intelligent decisions about great issues if they have the facts.

Graham’s essay isn’t bad and its conclusion, that government ought not to interfere in reporting is reasonable. Still in subsequent years we’ve seen how the media has failed to act responsibly.

In a recent article, in Graham’s own Washington Post, Hamas is no longer a terrorist organization, but a “radical Islamist movement that has declared its intention to destroy Israel.” Or “it’s considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel.”

And with Hamas so defined, it doesn’t take much for the Post to honor its representatives with op-ed space. Graham had written

The point is that we generally know when we are being manipulated, and we’ve learned better how and where to draw the line, though the decisions are often difficult.

Nowadays her heirs are willingly playing a role in the manipulation.The pliability of the media and many government isn’t lost on members of Hamas. In its brief against CAIR, the Investigative Project reported the following conversation (via memeorandum):

Awad: What is important is that the language of the address is there even
for the American. But, the issue is how to use it.
….
Omar Ahmad: There is a difference between you saying “I want to restore the ‘48
land” and when you say “I want to destroy Israel”.
….
Awad: Yes, there are different but parallel types of address. There
shouldn’t be contradiction. Address people according