In a recent article, Isabel Kershner of the New York Times wrote the following about Israel’s security fence:

Israel started building the barrier in 2002 with the intent of preventing Palestinian suicide bombers from reaching Israeli cities. Consisting mostly of wire fence but also, in parts, of high concrete walls, much of the barrier, which is about 57 percent complete, has been constructed on land east of the 1967 boundary, inside the West Bank, leading Palestinians to characterize it as a land grab.

In July 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an advisory opinion describing the routing of the barrier inside the West Bank as a violation of Israeli obligations under international law.

Israel’s Supreme Court, in response to petitions, has ordered several sections of the barrier route to be moved closer to the 1967 line, but most of the alterations have not yet been carried out.

There are several important things to note about these paragraphs.

Nowhere does Kershner write that since the fence has been built terror against Israel has decreased.
She mentions the ICJ’s ruling but doesn’t explain that the ruling is political not legal.
Even the Supreme Court’s ruling didn’t ignore the security issues involved.

When the Israeli High Court of Justice (or Supreme Court) ruled on the route of the fence in 2004, it wrote:

56. From a military standpoint, there is a dispute between experts regarding the route that will realize the security objective. As we have noted, this places a heavy burden on petitioners who ask that we prefer the opinion of the experts of the Council for Peace and Security over the approach of the military commander. The petitioners have not carried this burden. We cannot - as those who are not experts in military affairs - determine whether military considerations justify laying the Separation Fence north of Jebel Mukatam (as per the stance of the military commander) or whether there is no need for the Separation Fence to include it (as per the stance of petitioners’ and the Council for Peace and Security).

Still it concluded:

60. Our answer is that there relationship between the injury to the local inhabitants and the security benefit from the construction of the Separation Fence along the route, as determined by the military commander, is not proportionate. The route disrupts the delicate balance between the obligation of the military commander to preserve security and his obligation to provide for the needs of the local inhabitants.

Understand what’s going on here. The court admitted that it could not determine whose security credentials to trust: Whether to trust those then currently in the military or the partisan ex-officers. In the end, it ruled that the security question was moot, but determined that the damage caused by the fence was too great to justify any lessening security that might result from rerouting the fence.

Israel’s high court didn’t ignore the security issues it just ruled that they were irrelevant.

Now contrast that report with that about another recent court ruling.

On Sunday night, the Israeli High Court of Justice rejected a petition from an organization of terror victims, Almagor, against the release.

Among those freed Monday were two men whom Israel says have “blood on their hands,” meaning they had been convicted in attacks that harmed Israelis. Said al-Atabeh, 57, who had been in custody since 1977, was the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner.

Now Almagor had empirical evidence that prisoner releases were dangerous. Nadav Shragai recently provided the details of how released prisoners end up committing more terror.

I have no idea about the nature of Almagor’s petition. But if they provided proof that many of the terrorists freed in previous releases had indeed returned to terror and the court rejected that petition, then it showed once again that it deems the security of Israel’s citizens unimportant. It has demonstrated that inconveniencing Palestinians is worse than risking Israeli lives.

The media as demonstrated by the NY Times’s reporting also shows that their concern for the very real risks taken and negative rewards reaped by Israel is less important than that a process not leading to peace takes place. And, of course, Israel’s judicial system’s concern for Palestinian inconveniences at the expense of Israeli lives is met with Durban II.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

An Israeli drug companing has developed a drug that not only alleviates symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, but it slows the progression of the disease. But by all means, boycott Israeli academics, and don’t let Israeli scientists come to international conferences. Because why would you want to encourage Israeli to develop things like this?

[...] In its clinical trial, named “Adagio”, patients who took a tablet of Azilect once a day experienced slower disease progression in the early part of the trial and a steadying of symptoms in the last part of the trial, Teva said yesterday. They also experienced a smaller decrease in baseline function.

Parkinson’s disease patients who took Azilect tablets once a day from the time when they joined the trial demonstrated significant improvement compared to those who started the drug only nine months later.

Yes, go ahead, Britain. Keep working on that academic boycott of Israelis. Prevent Israelis from getting all the knowledge they need to forge ahead with improving the lives of non-Israelis. It’s not like the world needs alternative energy sources being developed by Israelis.

Yeah, go ahead. Boycott Israel. Because it’s not like Israeli scientists and entrepreneurs are doing anything special.

Oh. Wait.

“The law is an ass”, they say, and there is a good measure of truth in it. The (temporary, I hope) demise of Harry’s Place (HP) blog has shown again how easy it is in Britain to suppress any kind of writings anyone deems offensive (libelous will be the term used) to him/her. Even when the contents of that writings happen to be perfectly true.

The story starts with an “anti-Zionist” lady, one Jenna Delich, warmly recommending an article published on David Duke’s (the famous Jew-hater who will not be linked from this place) site to her buddy. When Harry’s Place made the story public, another “anti-Zionist” (and AssaJew to boot), Mike Cushman, advised Ms Delich to complain to the HP’s ISP, which she has promptly done.

As a result, the blog that simply told the truth is shut down.

Aside of the current UK law on libel being ridiculous, there is a supreme irony in the way the two lowlifes mentioned above behaved. These two belong to a small but vociferous crowd of “anti-Zionists” that chronically complain about being muzzled by everyone - from the Zionist lobby to the British Royal Post. And look what have they perpetrated. It will be quite difficult for them to revive their favorite strawman now, I am afraid.

To make the rest easier for myself, I shall quote the beginning and the end of an excellent post by Ami Isseroff:

Next time you read that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism, and next time you hear that the Zionist conspiracy is “muzzling” criticism of Israel” remember this one.

And:

Remember Jenna Delich next time you read that “anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.” Remember Mike Cushman when someone tells you, “he can’t be an anti-Semite, he is a Jew.” Remember Harry’s Place when someone tells you about the “Zionists” muzzling criticism.

Indeed. Now read the rest of that post.

And a few technicalities:

• You can follow the new developments on a mirror blog The Jenna Delich Archives
• You can express yourself by e-mailing these two characters:

• Jenna Delich: jenna.delich@sheffcol.ac.uk
• Mike Cushman: m.cushman@lse.ac.uk

Good luck.

Update: HP is back on-line.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

The approach to threats against Israel is one of those things that is taken casually. Here’s Secretary Rice on the regular but (relatively) infrequent Qassams that still get fired into Israel despite the ceasefire with Hamas:

QUESTION: How does the ceasefire in Gaza help matters? Has it endured better than you imagined?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, it has its ups and downs, obviously. But look, I - we said early on that if there - that calm in Gaza would be a useful thing because it - the Egyptians, who - with whom we worked, have managed to keep what is a very fragile situation at least stable, and that’s certainly a help to any process of trying to move forward on the peace process.

Ultimately, though, Gaza has to be resolved and it has to be resolved on the basis of the - Abu Mazen’s program for it, which is that legitimate Palestinian Authority institutions have to be reinstated. I think we want to continue to look at what can be done at the crossings for regularization of those ultimately along the lines of the November 2005 agreement. So this is not, I think, a metastable situation, but it’s a situation that for now has seemed to allow at least people to - you know, the levels of violence to stay low, and that’s welcome.

(h/t My Right Word)

Nothing about the threat from Hamas’s building of fortifications and re-arming. Somehow Abu Mazen (she’s using his nom de guerre, how reassuring) is going to impose his authority on Gaza.

And how’s that Abu Mazen thing going? Didn’t Israel just build his confidence? Why yes they did. The New York Times reports:

Israel released almost 200 Palestinian prisoners Monday in a good-will gesture aimed at reinvigorating the faltering peace process. Hours later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the country to make her own push for a deal between the two sides.

And what does this “good will gesture” entail?

Among those freed Monday were two men whom Israel says have “blood on their hands,” meaning they had been convicted in attacks that harmed Israelis. Said al-Atabeh, 57, who had been in custody since 1977, was the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner.

“This is a great joy for our mothers and our people, but it remains a small step because we left behind us thousands of prisoners,” Mr. Atabeh said after his release, according to Reuters.

Mr. Atabeh had been convicted in bombings that killed one Israeli woman and wounded dozens of people.

A second long-serving prisoner was Mohammed Abu Ali, who had been jailed since 1980 for the murder of an Israeli settler in the West Bank.

However, most of those set free had been arrested for lesser crimes within the past two years.

“It’s not easy for Israel to release prisoners,” said a government spokesman, Mark Regev, according to The Associated Press. “But we understand the importance of the prisoner issue for Palestinian society.”

(h/t Boker Tov Boulder)

Note that “blood on their hands” is in quotes. Why not just write “who were convicted of murder in the commission of acts of terror?” (without the quotes, of course) Why is almost as much time spent describing the prisoners by the length of time served as by the crimes they committed?

By emphasizing the time served changes their status from terrorists to prisoners. Put another way Snapped Shot asks and answers a question about the coverage of the prisoner release:

How does our “impartial” press choose to represent them?

You guessed it: As heroes.

And as far as the release of prisoners being important for Palestinian society, Israelly Cool explains why it’s important.

These murderers are but two of the “prisoners” we freed today, as a “goodwill” gesture to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. And he reciprocated with a goodwill gesture of his own - a threat that unless all the “prisoners” are freed, there will be no peace.

Speaking of gestures, this one made by the released prisoners does not mean “peace.” It means “V for victory”, and is basically a promise that the terrorism will continue.

JoshuaPundit writes (regarding Condoleeza Rice but the general point holds) about what’s not important:

No mention of course on whether it might matter a lot to the Israelis to keep these killers behind bars.I doubt that matter penetrates her consciousness.

Nor does it matter to Mahmoud Abbas, who referred to the released terrorists as ‘heroes’ and made a point of saying that no peace agreement with Israel was possible until all of the terrorists are released.Nor did eithr he or Condaleeza Rice have the common decency to mention a single word about Gilad Shalit, who’s still being held incommunicado in the Gaza Strip.

And as noted before past experience shows that these prisoner releases will lead to more terror, not peace.

Israel freed 400 Palestinian prisoners and five other prisoners in return for Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was held captive by Hizbullah, and for the bodies of three soldiers kidnapped on Mount Dov. According to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Tzahi Hanegbi, from the date of the deal on January 29, 2004, until April 17, 2007, those freed in the deal had murdered 35 Israelis.

The Washington Post describes the issue of prisoner releases like this:

Israel has periodically released Palestinian prisoners, whose fate is among the most politically and emotionally compelling issues for the Palestinian public, to shore up Abbas’s government. Abbas favors negotiations with Israel to create an independent Palestinian state, while the rival Hamas movement has advocated destruction of the Jewish state. The releases, although modest, are designed to show that Abbas’s approach yields rewards.

“Modest?” “yields rewards?” No mention that there’s a very good chance that a portion of the terrorist released will likely return to terrorism. So who receives the “rewards” other than terrorists who have seen their terms reduced, is not clear. No mention that the fellow who “favors negotiations” considers resistance (i.e. terrorism) to be peace. There’s something really Orwellian here.

And as a Blog for All writes:

It’s supposed to help bolster Fatah in their internecine struggle with Hamas, but all it does is provide more fodder for the terrorists to hold out hope that they can beat Israel for control over all territory West of the Jordan River.

Despite the romantic terms used to describe the prisoner release, they present a real risk to Israel. When will the world demand that the Palestinians take similar risks for peace?

Crossposted on Yourish.

Never mind that Israel allows large quantities of goods into Gaza and the Palestinians themselves smuggle even more in via tunnels from Egypt. But a bunch of anti-Israel activists decided to make some PR and “run” Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.

Two wooden boats carrying dozens of human rights activists reached the Gaza Strip on Saturday afternoon after the Israeli navy decided not to hinder the challenge to Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian enclave. Thousands of Palestinians turned out to welcome the group, which brought token humanitarian aid, including hearing aids and balloons.

The Post’s headline proclaims that the boats “broke” the blockade, but Israel let them pass unhindered.

(In some of the early publicity - it wasn’t news, it was unvarnished PR - it was noted that a Holocaust survivor was going to be on the boat. The Post’s PR release doesn’t mention her among the celebrities on the boat. Did she change her mind or was the Post just unaware of her presence.)

Meryl points out that since the ship of fools didn’t meet any resistance they charged that Israel jammed their instruments to prevent them from reaching Gaza.

However Backspin points out that the activists may not have such an easy time leaving Gaza as they did arriving.

And despite the crowds cheering their arrival, left unreported by many organizations was

once it turned out these boats contain too little food and mostly activists…some people left the beach disappointed.

(h/t Judeopundit - read the whole thing! )

Funny but there was a whole lot else going on in Gaza this weekend that somehow the Post’s Linda Gradstein failed to report:

Hamas stormed Al Azhar University in Gaza and the ensuing riots saw many injuries, including professors and a vice president of the university.

A teachers’ union in Gaza decided to go on strike to protest these sorts of attacks against teachers by Hamas. Hamas responded by abducting a Rafah school principal, one of the leaders of the union.

So a bunch of self promoting dweebs shilling for the Hamas government go sailing and that’s news. But when the government they’re supporting suppresses academic freedom that’s not news.

If the sailors wanted to do good, why couldn’t they go to the Sinai find some smuggling tunnels, stand in front of them and demand that the Palestinians not smuggle weapons into Gaza? Or at least insist that the Palestinians build tunnels that meet OSHA standards?

Crossposted on Yourish.

Daled Amos notes that the Israeli government apparently views the release of terrorists as a good thing. He sums up a news article like this:

In other words, Israel is hoping to force Hamas to the negotiating table with the same or increased demands for the release of terrorists with blood on their hands so that Israel can release them and gain Shalit’s release.

However Nadav Shragai notes that releasing terrorists doesn’t always build confidence the way Israel would like.

According to an informal estimate by Israeli security bodies, about 50 percent of the terrorists freed for any reason whatsoever returned to the path of terror, either as perpetrator, planner, or accomplice. In the terror acts committed by these freed terrorists, hundreds of Israelis were murdered, and thousands were wounded.

Israel freed 400 Palestinian prisoners and five other prisoners in return for Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was held captive by Hizbullah, and for the bodies of three soldiers kidnapped on Mount Dov. According to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Tzahi Hanegbi, from the date of the deal on January 29, 2004, until April 17, 2007, those freed in the deal had murdered 35 Israelis.

Something to keep in mind when recalling that Jordan last week released terrorists who had been transferred from Israel last year. The reason: Israel’s deal with Hezbollah to free Samir Kuntar put pressure on the Jordanian government to release the terrorists early.

In reaction to the early Jordanian release of the terrorists, Daled Amos asks:

I guess it would be too much to ask that in the interests of goodwill the Jordanians don’t celebrate and honor murderers of Israelis?

Except the record shows that releasing terrorists strengthens the extremists. So yes, it is asking too much.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The Palestinian welfare culture is so incredibly ingrained, that no good deed goes uncriticized.

The big lefty boat extravaganza—the ones that Israel allowed to land in Gaza after all, rather than cause front page pictures of the Israeli navy forcing the “peace protesters” away from Gaza’s shores—landed in Gaza to, well, not cheers. Jeers.

A Gaza activist told Ynet Saturday that local residents were disappointed by the small quantities of food brought in by two boats carrying international leftist activists.

“Many people thought these boats will make a significant contribution to break the siege, not only politically but also in terms of brining in goods, equipment, food, and medicine,” he said. “However, once it turned out these boats contain too little food and mostly activists…some people left the beach disappointed.”

So, basically, the activists didn’t coordinate their activities with the Palestinians—not surprising, as Hamas isn’t Fatah, and Gaza isn’t Ramallah. But the ingratitude of the Palestinians is a wonder to behold. Not as good as the Israeli foreign ministry, however.

The Foreign Ministry slammed the leftists and said that they did not deserve to be referred to as “peace activists,” branding them as a “handful of provocateurs seeking a public relations stunt who initiated a political protest aimed at boosting Hamas’ regime of horrors in Gaza.”

“How does such delusional journey promote peace?” the Foreign Ministry added. “What kind of contribution does this journey make to the promotion of ideas of reconciliation and compromise? None.”

Israeli officials noted that genuine humanitarian groups can provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population through existing land crossings, branding the leftist activists as “propagandists.”

Funny, though, how the L.A. Times has a different spin.

Arriving to a boisterous reception, the international activists aboard the boats said they hoped their symbolic breaking of the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip was just the beginning.

“We will surely try to bring the boats back again,” said Huwaida Arraf, one of 44 passengers who overcame rough seas and communications problems after setting out Friday from Cyprus. “The goal is to open a route between Cyprus and Gaza.

Really?

But Mekel warned that future attempts might get a different reception.

“I don’t know if others will want to do this,” he said, “but this is not a precedent for future.”

There’s something else that happened to the boats on leaving Cyprus. Now remember that previously, this mission was stopped by storms. Twice.

The two boats ran into trouble almost as soon as they left Cyprus. The navigation and communications systems on both failed, and some activists accused Israel of jamming them. Israel denied the allegation.

Paranoid much? But it wasn’t Israel that did it. I think it was a force far more powerful than the nation of Israel. Like, the power behind the nation.

Those “activists” better watch their asses if they put out to sea again, I think.

The kingdom of Jordan, which was the guardian of Jewish holy sites from 1948 to 1967, is lecturing Israel on digging near the Temple Mount.

Jordan said on Thursday it summoned the Israeli ambassador to protest against plans for excavation and construction work near the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Jerusalem’s most volatile holy site.

“Foreign Minister Salah Bashir summoned the Israeli ambassador this week to officially inform him that Jordan rejects such illegal measures,” said MP Mohammed Abu Hdeib, head of the lower house of parliament’s committee on international affairs, after meeting Bashir on Thursday.

Really? Jordan objects to such “illegal measures”? And yet, Jordan had no such objections when it was using Jewish cemetery headstones to pave roads, knocking down synagogues that had stood for centuries, and letting the al-Aqsa Mosque fall into disrepair.

Funny how the Jordanians only find their voices about this when they’re not the ones doing the digging. And Israel has never deliberately destroyed Muslim holy sites. So we really have no comparison to speak of.

You know, I really want to tell Jordan to do something extremely disgusting, but I think I’ll just leave this post with a G rating. (”Eat [censored] and die” was what I was thinking, actually.)

A few weeks ago the Washington Post reported that Obama working to ensure the Jewish vote:

Obama’s position on Israel has been fairly mainstream. He has declared himself an undying ally of the Jewish state and has indicated that he would like the United States to return to a position of honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But his connection to his former pastor Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose anti-Israel sermons were widely reported this past spring, caused concern among some Jewish groups.

“I think he does still have issues with the Jewish community,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a prominent Jewish member of Congress. “In the end, I think he’s going to do as well as any Democratic nominee with the Jewish community, but people still have to feel more comfortable with him.”

How’s that effort been working out lately?

Well let’s see, the National Jewish Democratic Council is working to fight the smears at its blog:

Earlier this month JTA reported that, “Natan Sharansky said an Obama presidency would be a ‘risk’ to Israel.” This is a continuation of the fear and smear campaign against Senator Barack Obama being perpetrated by many of Senator John McCain’s supporters.

Trashing the most famous prisoner of conscience. Good thinking.

The DNC points out that both possible Republican VP choice Eric Cantor and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff are - Jewish.

And Obama’s foreign policy adviser Daniel Kurtzer has gone to Syria to offer advice to the Syrians.

Oh and Jimmy Carter will be speaking at the Democratic convention.

Yes, this is a very comforting pattern. However, I have little doubt that Henry Waxman will be proven right in the end.

Pity.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Reuters has a puff piece that pretends to be reporting about the “liberalization” of Saudi Arabian cities. Let’s take a look.

The Saudi government has a project to develop at least four “economic cities” where many expect the religious establishment will be kept at a distance from social life, the workplace and education.

Women will be able to drive in them and there may even be cinema houses.

There are already some spaces in the country of 25 million people where the religious police — charged with maintaining “public morals” — are nowhere to be seen.

Premise one: Saudis (and by extension, foreign nationals) will be able to live normal, mostly-Sharia-free lives in at least four places.
Premise two: Women will be able to drive.
Premise three: There may be movie theaters. (Hoo-boy, the Saudis are going to join the twentieth century!)
Premise four: Areas already exist where the religious police “are nowhere to be seen”.

Now let’s take apart these premises, using the rest of the Reuters piece.

Jeddah carries the slogan “Jeddah is different” and Riyadh residents spend summer holidays in the Red Sea city, where local women with uncovered faces swan through shopping malls or sit in late-night shisha-pipe dens.

“Uncovered faces” is not exactly able to drive, work, and relax in public without fear of the religious police beating them and hauling them off to jail. And we discover that the zealots are chomping at the bit to take down these dens of iniquity.

Islamists constantly fulminate against the situation in Jeddah as if it was Sodom and Gomorrah.

The religious police generally also avoid the diplomatic district in Riyadh and Dhahran in the Eastern Province that houses Aramco.

Residents of the Eastern Province say the vice squad generally also leaves the city of Khobar alone, but has a strong presence in the neighbouring city of Dammam.

Please note the words in bold. If the religious police “generally” avoid areas, that means that there is a presence, and that they are not “nowhere to be seen.” So these women are at risk of being arrested pretty much at any time.

Premises one, two, and four have all been disproven by the very words in the rest of the Reuters article. As for premise three, again, well, gee, movie theaters. That’s so 1900.

Way to shill for the Saudis, though. Yes, that liberalization of Saudi Arabia continues apace. How long before the new, and highly touted coed university is attacked by either terrorists or the religious police?

Last year, Israel released 4 Jordanian murderers of Israelis to Jordan. At the time, Israel Matzav observed:

The Olmert - Barak - Livni government is about to turn four Jordanian murderers over to the Jordanian government in return for a promise that the murderers - who have served seventeen years out of a life sentence - will not be considered for a pardon for at least eighteen months.

Well it hasn’t been 18 months, it’s been a little more than a year and the Jordanian government has shown its contempt for Israel by releasing the four early.

Jordan, under public pressure after a recent Hezbollah-Israel prisoner swap deal, on Wednesday freed four inmates handed over by Israel last year to finish their sentences at home, officials said.

Sultan Ajlouni killed Pini Levy 18 years ago now gets to embrace his mother to the cheers of adoring crowds.

Efraim Zuroff wrote about the killing last year:

THAT NIGHT, at approximately 12:10, a terrorist infiltrated our lookout and managed to get to the guard post overlooking the river. He shot Pini with his pistol, grabbed his M-16 and headed for the hut where the rest of us were fast asleep. Luckily Baruch, who was initially shocked by the shooting, came to his senses and ran to the hut to alert us and try and catch the killer.

He caught him in our kitchen, about to open the door to the room where we were sleeping. It would have been dangerous to shoot (the walls were as thin as paper), so he hit him with the butt of his rifle.

Here’s the unforgettable part:

Next day, the IDF’s top brass came to the lookout to investigate the incident. Baruch related what had happened step-by-step. After he finished the story in the kitchen, Gen. Yitzhak Mordechai, at that time head of the Central Command, asked him bluntly: “Lama lo haragtem oto?” (Why didn’t you kill him?) - to which no one gave a clear answer.

The soldiers, of course, were following the Geneva conventions. Ajilouni was disarmed, they could not kill him.

So has the release of the Jordanian murderers led to higher levels of commercial and cultural ties with Jordan? Well no.

But the release of Samir Kuntar led to the release of four Jordanian murders. It was also likely the prelude for releasing more terrorists to Fatah and, eventually, to Hamas. When Israel releases prisoners it builds confidence - that it will release even more.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I told you the Iranians were lying when they announced that they could launch an air strike team on Israel. (H/T: Mike)

Fact is, the Iranian Air Force–or more correctly, Iran’s two Air Forces have serious training, equipment, airspace and logistical issues that make a successful strike on Israel almost impossible.

We’ll begin with the airspace problem. Getting to Israel from Iran means over-flying countries like Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Crossing Iraq and Jordan offers the most direct route, but that means a confrontation with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy jets–a battle the Iranians would certainly lose. Turkey and Saudi Arabia would also oppose transit by Iranian fighters headed for Israel, and both have better jets and pilots.

In fact, Iran’s most “viable” option for an airstrike against Israel would require a long, circuitous flight down the Persian Gulf, around the Arabian Peninsula, and up the Red Sea. That route would carry Iranian fighters through international airspace, but it would significantly increase flight time, in-flight refueling requirements and the probability of detection.

And, speaking of tankers, did we mention that Iran has only two–a KC-707 (similar to our own KC-135) and a modified Boeing 747. The older KC-707 flies on a periodic basis; as for the 747, there is some speculation that it has been converted for other missions, such as hauling cargo.

There’s much more. Read it all for an in-depth look at why the Iranians can barely muster enough fighter jets for an air show on “Death to the Infidels” Day.

Omri is at the Nefesh b’Nefesh blogger’s conference I couldn’t get to due to tiny little things like closing on my new home. He’s liveblogging it.

Netanyahu speaks:

18:51 - Bibi asserts that the Israeli government needs better public diplomacy - and that this can be done in part through a reasonably written daily blog. This is true. He also asserts that pro-Israel advocates can counter smears and fabrications with “just the truth” and that facts will defeat smears even if they remain “un-embellished.” This is false.

And the earlier liveblogging:

18:03 - Some woman just told Judith and I to “shush.” Despite my strong urging, Judith refuses to “yank that nobody’s hair and scream ‘do you know who I am’” Oh well.

Yes, Omri does tend to egg people on like that. He wouldn’t stop talking at my bat mitzvah about how one of my friends was a witch.

There’s a live webcast. Go look. Bibi’s speaking now.

According to the Oslo Accords the following prisoners are subject to release in the guise of confidence building measures.

2. The following categories of detainees and/or prisoners will be included in the abovementioned releases:

a. all female detainees and prisoners shall be released in the first stage of release;

b. persons who have served more than two thirds of their sentence;

c. detainees and/or prisoners charged with or imprisoned for security offenses not involving fatality or serious injury;

d. detainees and/or prisoners charged with or convicted of non-security criminal offenses; and

e. citizens of Arab countries being held in Israel pending implementation of orders for their deportation.

Note further that prisoner releases are listed as confidence building measures.

Earlier, someone observed that the point of the prisoner releases was to allow Israel to free Palestinian whose main crimes was membership in Fatah. After all the premise of the Oslo Accords was that Fatah had given up terror and that therefore, simply membership in Fatah should no longer constitute a crime. (I think it was Krauthammer’s observation, but I haven’t been able to find the column.)

Subsequently, prisoner releases have take on a whole new meaning. Observe the reporting on an upcoming release planned by Israel. The AP reports:

Israel’s prisons service said the upcoming release would include Said al-Atba, who has served 32 years of a life sentence for planting a bomb, illegal military training and belonging to a banned group. Al-Atba, 57, is the longest serving prisoner held by Israel and he is widely seen by the Palestinian public as a symbol for the prisoners.

The fate of the roughly 9,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails is highly emotional, as many Palestinians either know someone in prison or have served time themselves. Abbas, who is struggling to show his people the fruits of drawn-out peace negotiations with Israel, has repeatedly urged Israel to carry out a large-scale release.

“Solving the prisoner problem paves the road to solving other issues in (peace) negotiations,” said Ahmed Abdel Rahman, a spokesman for Abbas. He said the inclusion of long-serving prisoners would bolster the president’s credibility with the public, which has grown skeptical over the slow pace of peace talks.

And given that releases of prisoners seem to be a benchmark for success for Palestinian “governments”, releasing prisoners to Hamas creates its own problems.

Jerusalem denies this report outright. According to intelligence sources, Khalid Mish’al, the strong man in Hamas, has recently declared that “there would be no deal for the release of Shalit without the release of Al-Barghuthi.” According to Israeli intelligence sources, the release of Marwan al-Barghuthi, who is currently the most popular man on the Palestinian street, at Hamas’s behest would constitute the death blow to the PNA, an official death certificate for Abu-Mazin [Mahmud Abbas], and a dramatic boost to Hamas in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] as well.

Imagine that. The only consideration why Israel would not release Barghouti is that it might weaken the ineffective terrorist organization Fatah in favor of the effective terrorist organization Hamas.

Nowhere in these articles is a suggestion that the continuing release of prisoners means that peace is closer at hand. Furthermore, Prisoner releases do not mean that the Palestinians will govern themselves effectively. All prisoner releases mean is that Israel is saying that terror against its citizens is not that serious. It says that even the ongoing terrorism committed since Oslo - when Fataj committed to forswear terrorism - doesn’t represent bad faith on the part of Israel’s supposed peace partners.

Whereas the prisoner releases originally were an acknowledgment that Fatah has changed, now they represent an acceptance that Fatah has not changed.

It was 10 years ago, but the late, great Shmuel Schnitzer concluded an essay on prisoner release saying:

The Israeli judicial system does not consider the murderer’s motives, whether he acted out of hatred, or vengeance, or whether he was sent by some foreign entity which has claims against Israel and thus believes that it can hold Israeli citizens as hostages in order to meet its demands. States do not surrender to blackmail, even if they have lost a considerable part of their deterrent capability. There is no good reason to twist the Israeli judicial system’s arm because our neighbors are angry and rioting in the streets. Those who sent sent the young men on their murderous missions, sent them to long years in prison and must accept the fact that they simply come home forthwith.

Another question is whether the riots and disturbances jibe with the peace agreements. Those who incite the crowds and encourage them take a heavy responsibility upon themselves even if they have reason to suppose that the new Israel might be prepared to surrender to batons and stones.

Prisoner releases as confidence building measure needed to adhere to certain specific guidelines. Those guidelines are now ignored. The way the issue has been twisted over the past 15 years has turned it from a way of building trust into a way of building up an ineffectual and insincere “peace partner.”

The worst part of this is that it effectively means that Israel as a nation, accepts terror against its citizens as an appropriate expression of the Palestinian nationalism. Fatah hasn’t changed, just the way Israel views Fatah has changed.

Meryl has related thoughts here.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad. Elder of Ziyon demonstrates the meaningless of “gestures.”

Hamas is threatening to make Gilad Shalit disappear like Ron Arad. And if you take their analogy to its completion, they’re threatening to kill Shalit.

Hamas has warned that abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit will face a fate as uncertain as that of missing airman Ron Arad if Israel continues to tarry on negotiations for a prisoner exchange, Army Radio reported on Wednesday.

Abu Obeiada, a spokesman for the Gaza-based militant group made the comment on Tuesday, during an exercise simulating the capture of Israeli soldiers, the radio said.

What was it the New York Times editorial staff was smoking when it wrote this:

A way must be found to help turn Hamas into a legitimate and acceptable negotiating partner.

No, a way must be found to help turn Hamas terrorists into human beings. They’re currently stuck on “monsters.”

As co-blogger, Daled Amos notes in his excellent critique of the Times editorial The Peril of an Israeli Transition, the Times holds everyone responsible for a Palestinian state other than the Palestinians themselves.

I’d like to add a few observations.

1) More and more Palestinian independence is defined by their dependence on others.

2) At the end of the editorial, the editors write:

A way must be found to help turn Hamas into a legitimate and acceptable negotiating partner.

And that worked out so well, when the organization in question was Fatah.

3) We’ve been here before. A search yielded this editorial from when the Oslo Accords were anticipated.

Mr. Arafat, the P.L.O. chairman, risks his prestige and his life by standing up to radicals who hold out for the same maximalist demands he himself used to proclaim.

Then, 3 years later, after Binyamin Netanyahu was elected PM of Israel, in large part due to Arafat’s failure to move beyond the rhetoric of his past, the Times had this to say:

By meeting with Mr. Arafat, Mr. Netanyahu showed that he understands that the Likud Party’s fierce animosity toward the Palestinian leader should give way to a more moderate governing posture.

While it’s true that Netanyahu did moderate his “governing posture,” his “animosity” wasn’t the result of arbitrary prejudice as the Times suggested, but it was a reaction to his (correct) observation that Arafat did nothing but take Israeli concessions and then aid his allies fight in the commission of terror against Israel.

The same approach is still in place. Everyone in the world is responsible for creating a Palestinian state other than the Palestinians and that an essential element of that help is to ignore ongoing Palestinian obligations towards Israel.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Kassams have been landing daily again, but of course, the AP isn’t really reporting that. And tomorrow, they’ll be screaming about Israel closing the Kerem crossing again, one day after opening it. Like it’s Israel’s responsibility to keep on risking her people, but it’s not the Palestinians’ responsibility to stop trying to kill them.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the commercial crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip closed as of Wednesday morning following the launching of a Qassam rocket towards southern Israel earlier on Tuesday.

The crossings are to remain closed over the next two days. On Thursday Barak will conduct a revaluation of the situation

Palestinian gunmen launched a Qassam rocket from northern Gaza towards Israel on Tuesday evening. The rocket landed in an open area in a kibbutz belonging to the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council.

[...] More than 20 Qassam rockets have been fired towards the western Negev, as well as numerous mortar shells. Local residents say the attacks have become daily, and many worry the fragile truce may be at an end.

Wait for the screaming from the so-called objective media. Just wait for it.

When last we left our intrepid Gaza-by-the-sea protestors, they had been beached because the Israeli captain refused to let them aboard his ship unless they dumped the protest signs and kaffiyehs. The latest iteration: A “Free Gaza!” armada will be heading towards Israel’s shores.

But first, they were grounded by storms.

The highly controversial journey, announced earlier this summer, has already been delayed several times because of bad weather.

Methinks SOMEONE is trying to tell them something.

The SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty, which are sailing from Crete to Cyprus and then on to Gaza after being delayed by a storm, will carry about 40 protesters campaigning against Israel’s economic sanctions on the Palestinian territory, including an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor and Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of Tony Blair, who is the international special envoy to the Middle East.

I don’t know if these are the same protestors—my money is on yes for some of them—but I don’t think they’re going to get to where they’re heading this time, either.

Israeli officials are thought to see the protesters’ efforts as a dangerous precedent. The foreign ministry sent a letter advising organisers that Gaza coastal waters are subject to a no-go warning from the Israeli navy and that any attempt to approach would be interpreted as assistance to a terrorist regime.

They have offered help in delivering humanitarian aid via land borders instead.

“From my point of view this is some kind of pirate ship,” said Shlomo Dror, a defence ministry spokesman.

“You can demonstrate, that’s OK with us. But you are not allowed to break international law.”

They’re all ready for the photo op, however.

Organisers from the Free Gaza movement, who raised £150,000 for their mission to challenge the blockade, maintain Israel has no right to stop the boats. But they acknowledge they are likely to be intercepted by the Israeli navy and detained, and have already contacted consular officials and lawyers in Israel.

And they are full of the usual self-indulgent reasoning behind all lefty protestors: We’re right because we say we are, never mind what the rules may be.

“We hope that the Israeli government will have some wisdom. To drag us in and arrest us and say somehow we are a danger is absurd,” said, Greta Berlin, one of the organisers who is in Cyprus, where the boats are expected to dock before continuing to Gaza over the weekend.

The Israeli government does have some wisdom. It has the wisdom not to let a bunch of morons run a blockade aimed at keeping goods away from Hamas. I don’t think they’ll reach the port they want to reach.

Defence officials say unauthorised vessels would normally be escorted to official seaports at Ashdod or Haifa.

Well, this should be interesting to watch play out. My money’s on the Israeli navy.

Iran is launching a satellite, they say.

I say Israel should shoot it down.

Just a thought.

It never does anything. Whenever Israel releases prisoners as a “goodwill gesture,” well, nothing good comes of it. Unless you count Hamas getting even more pissy with Fatah, which is a good thing, because when they’re fighting each other, they have less energy to aim at Israel.

The two men are Muhammad Abu Ali, who murdered a reserve soldier in Hebron and a Palestinian detainee suspected of collaborating with Israel, and Said el-Atba, who planted three explosive devices in Petah Tikva and Tel Aviv markets and in Israeli buses. Israeli citizen Tzila Galili was killed in one of these attacks.

Gee, great idea. Go ahead and release a murderer and a terrorist. Because there’s no way terrorists would, say, go back to being terrorists. No, gee, why would they do that? That’s like saying the Palestinian police is infested with terrorists.

Oh. Wait.

Oh, look. A modern-day kapo.

Some of Hecht-Galinski’s critics say she is misusing her deceased father’s stature as an esteemed public figure to mount an anti-Israel campaign. She has invoked the phrase “as the daughter of Heinz Galinski” to defend her criticisms of Israel.

In a Deutschlandradio interview last year, she defended the remarks of German Catholic Bishops Gregor Maria Hanke and Walter Mixa, who, while visiting Israel in March 2007, equated Israel with Nazi Germany.

“This morning we saw pictures of the Warsaw Ghetto at Yad Vashem and this evening we are going to the Ramallah ghetto,” Hanke said. For Mixa, Ramallah was “ghetto-like” and “almost racism.”

The Yourish.com mantra works for people like her, too.

Hugh Chavez met with Jewish leaders last week and insisted that he’s not an anti-Semite. No, he just likes sending his goons into Jewish gatherings.

“We mentioned our concerns about anti-Semitism and asked him what his position was,” Schneider said. “And he said he was certainly not an anti-Semite.”

The socialist president said it was a “very important meeting,” but did not elaborate.

Funny. You’d think a man who was truly interested in setting to rest charges of anti-Semitism would say more than that. Because when he does things like this:

Venezuela’s Jewish groups condemned a police raid on their community center last December, saying authorities were searching for nonexistent weapons. They also have denounced graffiti on synagogue walls with slogans such as “Here are the assassins of Palestine” and “Jews go home.”

it sure looks like he has a problem with Jews—not just “Zionists.”

Yet another incident proves the French have their own little cachet when it comes to anti-Semitism.

French police are investigating the sale of T-shirts bearing an anti-Semitic slogan and have detained the owner of a Paris shop that sold the clothing.

[...] The official is not authorized to speak publicly and asked to remain anonymous, but corroborated a report that the T-shirts bear the words, in German and in Polish: “Entry to the park forbidden to Jews.”

They can’t even think up anything new. They’re recycling old German slogans. Schmucks.

And last but not least, one of the comments that I generally delete without even looking:

If there were real peace the US would not need to give Egypt any military aid or money. Use your f***ing head you stupid f***ing Jew. YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS. F***ing fake white ass c****. Go back to where you come from. Go back to europe you f***ing c***. F*** you and your families. Shalom to you yiddish piss f***s.

That’s from an anti-Semitic f**k in Brighton, England using the IP address 90.198.98.84. (They use the c-word in England like it’s “jerk” or something.) And may I say, do the world a favor and just die already, you ignorant, anti-Semitic twat. (They use that word a lot over there as well.)

It really makes you wonder: How small are anti-Semites’ penises to make them so very angry like that? I mean, their inferiority of intellect is obvious in the fact that almost none of them can make a coherent email. But there must be something else driving them. Besides their inherent stupidity, that is. Because this moron doesn’t even know that I’m living in America, not Israel, and, well, America is the country where the smart Europeans come to get away from the stupid Eureopeans like this one.

I think that one hurt its brain after reading my site.

Yeah, pull the other leg:

Iran says it has increased the range of its warplanes, allowing them to fly as far as Israel and back without refueling.

State TV is quoting air force chief Gen. Ahmad Mighani as saying Iranian warplanes can now fly 3,000 kilometers (1,865 miles) without refueling. He didn’t specify the aircraft type or explain how the range was extended.

Okay, you can’t count magic carpets, and you certainly can’t count the flying horse of Mohammed that supposedly got him to Jerusalem (which, at the time, held no mosque, but why quibble?).

And no djinn, either.

So what do you suppose the Iranians have done to their aging fleet of F-14 Tomcats and Soviet-supplied aircraft, hm?

I’m thinking nothing. This is just bluster. And why would the Iranians want Israel to think that Iranian airplanes could reach Israel without refueling? Hell, even the AP can figure it out:

Sunday’s report did not refer to Israel by name, but Mighani’s remarks come after an Israeli air exercise in June that US officials described as a possible rehearsal for a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Too bad Iran doesn’t really have the capacity. I think we’d see a repeat of the last dogfight with Syria: 100 downed Syrian jets to zero Israeli jets downed by Syria.

So, when Chipmunk Cheeks Nasrallah makes threats on TV from a hidden location deep in Lebanon, should we do anything more than laugh, loudly and scornfully?

Speaking on Lebanese television in a special broadcast marking two years since the end of the Second Lebanon War, Nasrallah said that the outcome of the war “affected Israel and the entire region.”

[...] Nasrallah accused Israel of planning to assassinate Hizbullah leaders, saying this would not deter Hizbullah from continuing its battle against Israel.

“I tell the Zionists: We don’t fear you. Say whatever you want and do whatever you want. We know that you are planning new assassinations of resistance leaders. But this will not make us retreat,” he said. “We are staying here and standing fast here.”

The Hizbullah leader went on to say that Israel was helpless in dealing with the Iranian Islamic Republic, and that even Israel recognizes its own inability to cope with the rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.

To review: He doesn’t fear Israel or the Zionists, and yet, he’s afraid to show up in public unless surrounded by thousands of civilians, knowing full well that Israel won’t drop bombs on him if there is a risk of killing women and children. He doesn’t fear Israel or the Zionists, yet he has been in hiding for years. He doesn’t fear Israel or the Zionists, and yet, he can’t walk in the open in downtown Beirut, his stomping grounds.

Yeah, “cognitive dissonance” is not a phrase bandied about much in NasrallahLand.

Given that a number of journalists have been killed or injured in the fighting between Russia and Georgia, Reporters without Borders (RSF) issued the following condemnation:

Only an impartial analysis of what happened would be able to prevent these kind of tragedies from recurring. Instead of reassuring the press, the Russian military is fostering an unacceptable climate of fear and danger.

Well actually, that’s not what Reporters without Borders, this is their statement about the current violence in Georgia:

This toll is already heavy and we appeal to all the parties involved to tell their forces to respect the work of the press and to ensure they do not target journalists.”

Note the general nature of their tone. At the point of this press release at least four journalists had been killed and a number of others injured and the fighting was continuing.

Contrast the tone with the RSF reacted when the IDF informed Reuters that it found no evidence of wrongdoing when an Israeli tank crew accidentally fired upon a Reuters reporter, Fadel Shana, killing him and a number of bystanders back in April.

First of all there’s the headline to the press release:

Israeli enquiry unsurprisingly decides not to punish soldiers who killed Palestinian cameraman

“unsurprisingly decides” is an interesting choice of words. It presumes that the IDF tank crew was culpable and that the available evidence made it a clear cut case that IDF investigators ignored. Then in the press release itself is the language that I altered above:

“Only an impartial analysis of what happened would be able to prevent this kind of tragedy from recurring. Instead of reassuring the press, the Israeli military is fostering an unacceptable climate of fear and danger.

“If journalists are wearing flak jackets, keeping a reasonable distance from the belligerents and clearly displaying press markings, there should be a change in the behaviour of the soldiers in areas where civilians, including journalists, are present.”

It has been four months since the incident. In the meantime no journalists that I’m aware of have been injured. But RSF’s attitude is that Israel is operating in a manner that regularly and needlessly endangers journalists. The accusatory tone and assumptions of RSF regarding Israel stands in sharp contrast to the plaintive tone of its release addressing the fighting in Georgia, where journalists were still endangered. (h/t Backspin)

Reuters itself, of course, was unsatisfied with the result of the Israeli inquiry. David Schlesinger, editor in chief of Reuters writes:

Said the report: “Two persons were spotted leaving the vehicle, carrying a large black object. The black object was placed on a tripod above a dirt mound, and directed at the tank…. The tank crew reported the spotting to its superiors. The latter authorized firing a tank shell at the characters, in light of the genuine suspicion that the object mounted on the tripod and directed at the tank was an anti-tank missile or mortar, a suspicion consistent with the characteristics of that day’s hostilities…”

I do understand the stresses of the battlefield.

To which Backspin responds:

Shana’s death is indeed a tragedy and Schlesinger is correct to treat as such. But it’s difficult to say that the Reuters editor really understands the stresses of the battlefield.

A tank crew that spends too much time trying to verify whether it’s looking at a tripod-mounted camera or anti-tank rocket launcher jeopardizes itself, conceding the initiative to “the unknown other.” Israel Matzav posted some photos showing that anti-tank weaponry like this Milan sometimes do resemble video equipment.

Dion Nissenbaum of McClatchy blogged:

Here is one particularly relevant factoid worth considering: Palestinian militants in Gaza have never used a serious anti-tank weapon with the range capable of hitting a target from a mile away.

That means that, even if Shana was preparing to fire a weapon, the Israeli soldiers should have known that they weren’t facing any real danger.

The Israeli general said that the soldiers weren’t able to determine if the item mounted on the tripod was a mortar, a camera or an anti-tank missile. For that reason, they opened fire.

If Israeli soldiers can’t distinguish a mortar tube from a mounted camera, their training is sorely lacking.
…
Fadel was on a road a mile away from the tank, he was driving a car with “TV” written on the side, he was wearing a flak jacket clearly marked with a “press” sticker, he had been filming for several minutes and was not working in an area of active fighting.

So he gives three main reasons why it should have clear that Fadel Shana posed no threat to the tank crew:
1) A “factoid” that no one in Gaza has anti-tank weapons capable of damaging a tank at that distance.
2) It should be easy (at the range of a mile) for a soldier to distinguish between a camera and an anti-tank weapon
and
3) Shana was clearly identifiable as a journalist.

I enlisted help of a number of bloggers who had responses to all three claims.
1) My Right Word left a comment that Nissenbaum’s “factoid” is wrong and that, in fact, terrorists in Gaza do possess weapons that would threaten a tank at the distance in question. For example:

December 2002. An IDF Engineering Corps soldier was moderately wounded and two civilians were lightly wounded when an anti-tank missile that was launched toward civilian targets on the Israel-Egypt border near Rafah, struck nearby them. The three were transferred for further medical treatment to Be’er Sheba.

Check out the comment for the complete response.

2) As noted above, Israel Matzav, produced a number of photos of anti-tank weapons and compared them to Shana’s camera. Read his complete response.

3) Elder of Ziyon e-mailed me a couple of photographs with comments which I will reproduce here:

Here is the shot that Fadel Shana took of the Israeli tank that killed him, fully zoomed in.

… a picture of the car that said “TV” on it that was supposedly so easy to see.

Elder of Ziyon writes further:

Unless the IDF has much, much better optics than Reuters, I cannot see how the IDF would be able to read “TV” on that car, let alone on a jacket, or even to distinguish a blue flak jacket from green fatigues in the dust of Gaza.

Nissenbaum also claimed that since Shana had been filming the tank for several minutes before the tank fired, it should have been clear that he posed no threat. But that assumes that the tank crew was aware of Shana’s presence and wasn’t engaged with any other threat at that time.

I do find it interesting that Nissenbaum is so dismissive of the Israeli investigation. In his infamous post about Samir Kuntar he ignored physical evidence and an eyewitness account to promote a defense of Kuntar.

Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Beirut-based political analyst and Hezbollah specialist, said people here simply don’t accept Israel’s version of events.

“I don’t think all Lebanese believe he actually killed the child,” she said.

Nissenbaum wrote no corrective that there was proof, he just let the Hezbollah mouthpiece deny that Kuntar was a murderer.

And yet here he is skeptical of the Israeli inquiry simply because it did reach the same conclusion he did based, in part, on a phony “factoid.”

In all three cases of RSF, of Reuters and of Dion Nissenbaum there was a presumption of Israeli negligence if not criminal intent. From what we know, it appears that the IDF deserves the benefit of the doubt in this case.

LGF and Snapped Shot have more.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

A sliver of ‘ringshine’ pierces the darkness in this view that looks toward the unilluminated side of Saturn’s rings.

The ring shadows fall into darkness beyond the terminator in the north. South of the equator, a dim glow brightens the darkened globe. This light, called ringshine, comes from sunlight reflected off the sunward side of the expansive rings (the opposite face of the ringplane from this perspective).

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on April 19, 2008. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 851,000 kilometers (529,000 miles) from Saturn.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

An Iranian minister made the mistake of declaring that he didn’t hate Israel.

He’s about to lose his job because of it.

More than 200 Iranian parliament members slammed Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashai for stating that Iranians are ‘friends of all people in the world — even Israelis.’

In a condemnation statement issued by the parliament members, they called on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to “deal with his deputy with severity” – in other words, to ensure that he is dismissed.

“Mr. Mashai has no right to make such shameful remarks, and is not at the position to take such responsibility,” the statement said. “It appears that Mr. Mashai is unaware of the fact that those who he refers to as a people are the ones occupying the homes of millions of Palestinians.”

The statement noted that “these people created the illegitimate Zionist regime. We do not recognize a country called Israel, let alone its people.”

Remember that the next time Ahmadinejad lies to a reporter and says he has no problem with Jews—that it’s only “Zionists.” And the realize that when he says “Zionists,” he doesn’t mean Israelis. He means Jews. And so do his people.

[...] “We do not recognize a country called Israel, and so we cannot recognize a nation called Israel,” the lawmakers said in their statement, according to Fars, the semiofficial Iranian news agency.

“If Mr. Mashai does not have the political awareness that the Israeli people are the same people who have occupied the homes of millions of innocent and oppressed Palestinians and have created the army of the Zionist regime, he has no right to hold such a position,” the statement added.

Funny, I can’t find an AP article on this. Only one on the statement of friendship three days ago.

Iranian media are quoting the country’s vice president as saying Iranians are “friends of all people in the world — even Israelis.”

It is a rare instance of official Iranian media carrying an expression of sympathy toward Israelis from such a high-level official.

Yes, that rare instance is now going to be the reason the man is fired. God forbid an Iranian minister not be an anti-Semitic nutjob. And let us not mistake the Iranian anti-Semitism. Its client terrorist group targeted Jews and Jewish insititutions in Buenos Aires—not the Israeli embassy, or The Zionist Club Of Buenos Aires. The Iranians used to be the friends of the Jews, but Alexander is long dead and gone. Shame on his descendants.

An Associated Press story about how Hamas and Fatah are both clamping down on dissent in the territories that each controls observes:

The U.S. and Europe have said little about violations in the West Bank, even as they’re spending millions of dollars on police training to help lay the foundations of a democratic Palestine. The foreign trainers say the abuse isn’t carried out by security forces under their supervision.

Both Hamas and Fatah portray the sweeps as security measures, and play down rights violations as isolated.

Forget for a moment whether giving Hamas and Fatah money helps them perpetuate their wars against Israel, if the money is helping them oppress their own people isn’t that reason to stop funding them? Wasn’t the goal to have a secular democratic state living side by side with Israel? In the case of Hamas neither quality is emerging and in the case of Fatah the democratic aspect is rather lacking.

Then there’s the town of Mawassi in Gaza where Palestinians want Israel back.

Three years have passed since Israel withdrew from Gaza, and in that time the economy has gone from bad to worse. “I want [the Israelis] to come back,” says Riyad al-Laham, an unemployed father of eight from Mawassi - a mixed ethnic Palestinian and Bedouin town located in the middle of Gush Katif - who worked in the area’s Jewish settlements for nearly 20 years. “All the Mawassi people used to work in the settlements and make good money. Now there is nothing to do. Even our own agricultural land is barren.” Before Israel withdrew, Mawassi was a town of fertile corn crops and greenhouses, which - like the ones in the Jewish settlements - grew cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, and strawberries. Now, only shells remain of many of the greenhouses that were stripped of valuable materials. A town that fed itself with its produce and the money its men made from working with the set