I am prepared to be the price
Gad Ezra writing to his girlfriend Galit:

My dear Galit,
If this letter reaches you, it means that something has happened to me. My love, on one hand there is nothing in the world that I want more than to be with you, to love you and to build a home and a family with you. But on the other hand, there is nothing I want more than to go out on this operation and hit these bastards, so they won’t think of doing another terrorist attack. So that they will know they are paying a price. I am prepared to be that price… I will always think of you, wherever I will be and I’ll make sure you meet a person who will make you happier than I have… Promise me you will carry on. That is how it should be, that is right.
Gadi

______________________
March 2002. 23 year-old reserve soldier Gad Ezra, wrote this letter to his girlfriend, whom he was about to marry. About a month later, on 4th April, he was killed in the IDF operation in Jenin.

“Ha’ir” local Tel-Aviv paper, 26th September, 2002.

posted by Imshin 22:12

New Jersey has a state poet? Wow! Is this normal in the US?
posted by Imshin 18:50

Jane's Foreign Report newsletter says Israeli "Sayeret Matkal" commando unit is operating inside western Iraq, pinpointing locations where Iraqi missile launchers might be positioned. Via Haaretz.
posted by Imshin 18:35

It's not a revolt or an uprising, numbskulls.
It's like talking to the wall.

THEY WERE OFFERED THE REST OF THE WEST BANK AND THE GAZA STRIP ON A PLATTER (with an offer so generous it probably would have sparked civil war among Jews in Israel) JUST A SHORT WHILE BEFORE THEY ATTACKED. I REPEAT, ATTACKED. BUT THEY DECIDED THEY DIDN'T WANT IT. IT WASN'T ENOUGH.

But you're quite right. We're the rogue state.

Idiots.

posted by Imshin 08:23

Israel is apparently less corrupt than Japan, France and Italy and most other countries, for that matter. So there.
According to Miami's Jewish Star Times, Transparency International ranked Israel as the 18th least corrupt country out of 102 countries.

“Israel scored 7.3 out of a highest score of 10 for the least corrupt country. Israel was ranked at 16 in 2001. Finland led with a score of 9.8. The US ranked 16th with a score of 7.7. Israel lead Japan (20), France (25) and Italy (31)”.

Not bad, huh? I’d have expected corruption to jump, considering the recession here, but it hasn’t. Israel's score for 2001 was 7.6, so it's down just 0.3.

This is the report for 2001 (in PDF). Couldn’t find 2002.

Update: Harvey Fish has found the 2002 report for me.

posted by Imshin 22:07

Hag Same'ach and Shabbat Shalom. (A little later than usual, but we were out and then blogger was down).
posted by Imshin 22:06

Fireworks for Bish’s birthday, care of Silflay Hraka.
posted by Imshin 11:39

Happy birthday to Bish. Happy Birthday to Bish. Happy birthday to Bi-ish. Happy birthday to Bish.
posted by Imshin 10:02

It says here (Hebrew) that 16 children were wounded in the attack on Mohammad Def (is he dead yet or what?).

I saw an interesting thing on the TV coverage of this (attempted?) killing. As they often do, they showed the footage again and again, so I’m quite sure I’m not mistaken. Abu Dhabi TV apparently got to the scene of the burning car of Mohammed Def first. They showed a wounded man being taken out of the car. It was not possible to see his face. There is some suspicion that this is Def, and this is why they’re not sure that he is dead.

The footage continues. A few scenes later, you can clearly see a young boy, in a bright yellow T-shirt, very actively keeping passers-by from coming near what looks like part of the car-wreckage. I got the impression someone had told him to do this, and he, proud of his mission, was fulfilling it most conscientiously, very cocky and full of himself. A few scenes later, I could see the same boy, wearing the same bright yellow T-shirt, being helped towards an ambulance, as if he were wounded. Now, if it weren’t for that bright yellow T-shirt I probably wouldn’t have made the connection, but I saw it about three or four times and it was definitely the same boy.

So 16 kids were injured, were they? I wonder.

posted by Imshin 23:36

99% dead?
Could Israel's most wanted terrorist, Muhammed Def, have been killed by missiles dispatched from Israeli helicopters today?

Def has been wanted for ten years and more and was responsible for many murderous terrorist attacks, including the particularly horrific wave of terror following the killing of Hamas master terrorist known as "the engineer", Yihya Ayash, in 1996. This wave of terror was one of the main reasons for Peres losing the 1996 election to Netanyahu.

Def became a Palestinian symbol, because of his remarkable ability to stay alive. Following the recent killing of Hamas head, Salah Shehada, he was made his heir. This forced him out of hiding.

I just saw Professor Shaul Mishal, who I was very taken with when he taught me in university during the first Intifada, discussing the killing or attempted killing, on Israeli TV, channel 1. Still a PhD in those days, Dr. Mishal was known as the most boring lecturer ever and notoriously nasty to 99% of his students. But once those 99% had fled in terror, he was thrilling. A year-long course I took with him, about Arab society and politics in the West bank, was the high point of my studies in the Political Science faculty of Tel Aviv University.

Mishal sees the killing of Hamas heads as a mistake, coming without a coherent plan and warns of a wave of terrorism like that followed the killing of Ayash in 1996, which will be necessary so the Hamas can rebuild its reputation. I didn't really understand what alternative action he suggests, but this was probably because I had to go make the girls an omelette and missed much of what he had to say. I could probably remedy this by reading his book about the Hamas, which is lying unread, on Bish's bedside table. I've nearly finished Bernard Lewis. Maybe this should be next.

If Mishal's writing abilities are any better than his remarkable lack of talent for public speaking, I may get back to you on this in a few weeks (I told you I was a slow reader).
posted by Imshin 20:07

A massacre in Lebanon
The following account is not suitable for children or for the faint of heart:
“An entire family had been killed, the Can'an family, four children all dead, and the mother, the father, and the grandfather. The mother was still hugging one of the children. And she was pregnant. The eyes of the children were gone and their limbs were cut off. No legs and no arms.

[…]

Many of the bodies had been dismembered, so they had to count the heads to number the dead. Three of the men they found had had their genitals cut off and stuffed into their mouths.

The horror did not end there, the old … cemetery was also destroyed, coffins were dug up, the dead robbed, vaults opened, and bodies and skeletons thrown across the grave yard”.

Sabra and Shatila, September 1982?

Not quite.

Actually it’s part of Father Mansour Labaky’s eyewitness account of the Damour Massacre, perpetrated by Yasser Arafat’s PLO in the January of 1976. Following the massacre the town was ruined, and was turned into a Fatah and PFLP terrorist stronghold, the local church serving as a repair garage for PLO vehicles and also as a range for shooting-practice. According to Father Labaky, who went back with the Red Cross to bury the dead, 582 were killed.

Some apologists for the Palestinians give the number of 200 dead. Noam Chomsky, an American linguist, who, strangely enough, seems to think his views on subjects unrelated to linguistics are of value, apparently believes that Damour was an example of Israeli propaganda. He is sceptical as to estimates of those killed, and claims, surprise surprise, that the massacre was taken out of context.

But a search via Yahoo reveals that Father Labaky is a highly respected Maronite priest and writer who went on to look after Lebanese war orphans, and has published a collection of hymns and other books.

At the beginning of the massacre Father Labaky tells of frantically phoning influential people to try and stop it: “Then he telephoned Kamal Jumblatt, in whose parliamentary constituency Damour lay. 'Father,' Jumblatt said, 'I can do nothing for you, because it depends on Yasser Arafat.' He gave Arafat's phone number to the priest.

An aide answered, and when he would not call Arafat himself, Father Labaky told him, ‘The Palestinians are shelling and shooting at my town. I can assure you as a religious leader, we do not want the war, we do not believe in violence.' He added that nearly half the people of Damour had voted for Kamal Jumblatt, 'who is backing you,' he reminded the PLO man. The reply was, 'Father, don't worry. We don't want to harm you. If we are destroying you it is for strategical reasons’.”

So Arafat had the power to stop the carnage, but chose not to.

This January was the 27th anniversary of the Damour massacre. I don’t remember reading any commemorative articles.

My Bish has done some research:
“A Google search for: Damour and massacre finds 525 results.
A Google search for: Shatila and massacre finds 9040 results.
A Google search for: Damour and massacre and Shatila finds 118 results.
That means that there are approximately 407 pages on the Damour Massacre, 8922 pages on the Sabra & Shatila Massacre, and 118 on both”.

He wonders why some massacres get more PR than others.

”It cannot be because in one massacre Muslims slaughtered Christians and in the other Christians slaughtered Muslims, can it? Most of the Internet users are Christians not Muslims.

I’ll have to guess then that only one of them can be pinned on the bloody Jews!”

posted by Imshin 22:16

Genocide? Massacre of millions? The Belgians? Those well known champions of world justice? Could this be? Never!
Of course! Now I get it. That’s why they think they’ve got the moral right to judge the rest of the world! They know exactly what genocide and crimes against humanity are. All they have to do, if they’re not sure what these consist of, is read their own state records!

According to this New York Times article about a new exhibit in a Belgian museum, “In 1919, a Belgian commission estimated that Congo's population was half what it was in 1879”.

In “… Adam Hochschild's " King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa " (Houghton Mifflin, 1998), which appeared in translation in Belgium in 1999 …

… Mr. Hochschild describes how, along with the uncounted thousands who died of disease and famine, many Congolese were killed by Leopold's agents for failing to meet production quotas for ivory and rubber, the territory's principal sources of wealth before its diamonds, copper and zinc were discovered. Mr. Hochschild estimates the total death toll during the Leopold period at 10 million”.

Now all we have to work out is why the New York Times saw fit to bury this in the Arts section and not on the front page? Oh, of course, they haven’t managed to pin it on Israel yet. How silly of me.

posted by Imshin 18:53

Janet Daley tells UK telegraph readers that the “moral case against war is at best naive, at worst idiotic”:

“When the obtuse camp pleads for concern about the innocent Iraqis who may suffer in an American attack, I wonder about the innocent Kurds who have suffered under Saddam's homicidal persecution. When the obtuse-niks plead for more time for hapless United Nations weapons inspectors to be fobbed off and obstructed, I wonder if they would be so blithely passive about racist mass murder in other countries? Would George Galloway have spoken so assiduously against military intervention if the old white regime in South Africa had gassed Soweto?”

posted by Imshin 18:18

“…the Palestinian leadership, and behind it the Arab political and media atmosphere, have not risen to the level required in order to make a [correct historic] choice.”
MEMRI has translated excerpts of an article by liberal Egyptian author Amin Al-Mahdi, that was published in London-based, Arabic language Al-Hayat. He discusses the mistake Arafat made in not accepting the deal offered him in Camp David in the summer of 2000:

"When Arafat returned from Camp David, his masses carried him on their shoulders as a symbol of respect for his achieving nothing. The Arab propaganda apparatuses and the statements by top officials in some Arab countries played a significant role in these strange festivities. It was the right moment to add conditions making the problem irresolvable, such as adherence to the refugees' right of return to Israel – meaning, simply, the establishment of two Palestinian states. Furthermore, a demagogic attack lacking any objective basis [was launched] against Clinton and the U.S. policy (there are many reasons to criticize American policy, but I do not think that Clinton's peace plan was one of them)."

Al-Mahdi ties Arafat’s failure in with the bigger picture:

"...In my personal opinion, no matter what peace proposal Clinton presented to the Arab side, it was sure to be rejected. This is because the Palestinian issue was always the main source of legitimacy for the revolutionary [Arab] regimes that established rural or tribal military republics. The Palestinian issue was always the subject of 'Announcement No. 1' of all these [Arab military coups]. More important, it was the prop for the war declared on democracy and modernization [by the Arab regimes], an eternal pretext for the bill of divorce from the free world and for imposing various laws, from emergency laws through military laws."

posted by Imshin 16:35

What Lunch Meat Are You?

Chicken????

I hope I'm free range.
posted by Imshin 14:19

Happy Birthday
Singer Gerry Marsden (Gerry and the Pacemakers) is 60 today.


Forgive me for this sacrilegious link, R.T.

posted by Imshin 21:44

It may not be as easy as some expect
Richard Cohen in the Washington Post suggests that Iraqis do not wish to be liberated from Saddam Hussein just as Germans did not wish to be liberated from Adolf Hitler (contrary to what Condoleeza Rice suggested recently).

posted by Imshin 21:39

China = Israel?
I used to see myself as a supporter of the Tibetan cause. I flew the flag of Free Tibet on my car bumper, joined IFTIP (Israeli Friends of the Tibetan People) and went to see the Dalai Lama speak when he last visited Israel.

Then, some time ago, I saw a program about China, on Israeli TV, in which an academic expert on China said a few words about the Chinese side of the Tibet issue. It was very eye opening. I suddenly realized that I knew far too little about the conflict and all my information came from one side.

I have noticed that many claims pro-Palestinians regularly make about what Israel does to the Palestinians are very similar to atrocities I’ve heard and read that are ascribed to China with regard to Tibet. I’m talking about claims such as using the territories as a toxic waste dump, ethnic cleansing, unrelenting racist discrimination, indiscriminate murder of innocents and so on. You know the score. It is all suspiciously similar to what they’re saying about China and Tibet. And it’s more or less the same sort of people who are saying these things in both cases.

I know China is a very different kind of country, which still propagates its ideologies forcefully, and puts people who think differently in prison. Therefore China cannot really be compared to Israel.

I think Tibet should have freedom, just as I believe the Palestinians should have a state, when they can prove themselves trustworthy. But I have begun to wonder if the Chinese are really as wicked as they are made out to be, with regard to Tibet.

posted by Imshin 21:01

Advertisement on half a page in the printed version of Haaretz, yesterday (made out to look like a mourning notice):
THE SAME FINGER ON THE SAME TRIGGER: THOSE WHO ELIMINATED YITSHAK RABIN ARE NOW ELIMINATING YASSER ARAFAT
(signed) GUSH SHALOM

I didn't get it, so I popped into the Gush Shalom website. There it is explained graphically so even stupids like me can understand:


Now all is clear.

posted by Imshin 06:22

But you can't beat terrorism by force
Ynet says that during the demonstrations in Beit Jalla on Saturday night, one of the demonstrators shot about 20 bullets towards the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. I remember reading, that night, that Gilo residents could hear gunfire. Israel apparently warned the Palestinians that if the shooting did not cease, Israel would re-enter Beit Jalla. This was not necessary. It seems dozens of the shooter's neighbors gave him a good beating!
posted by Imshin 21:50

I knew it!
Update on the John Pilger wishful-thinking-becomes-history documentary. Nelson Ascher from Paris was kind enough to enlighten me: "There's another Pilger article in today's Guardian. There he tells who is the Israeli historian he was talking about. Guess who else could he be: Illan Pappe". Why am I not surprised? Well, because that's exactly who I thought it must be, but was too timid to say. Distinguished historian indeed. Not in Israel, well maybe in Beer-Sheva University (Some of the political scientists there are real fruitcakes. Maybe the desert sun addled their brains). These days I mainly read Pappe's articles in Arab papers. Well, I don't actually read them. Waste of time. Reading Pappe is a bit like reading those newspapers you get in supermarkets that have headlines like: "I married an alien, our daughter flew off in a spaceship".

By the way, John Pilger has his very own website. He doesn't seem to have an e-mail. I wonder why.

posted by Imshin 20:23

Yasmin Abu Ramila
Last night, on TV, they showed Yasmin Abu Ramila, the Palestinian East Jerusalem little girl who got terrorist victim Yoni Jesner’s kidney. What a sweet little girl. They said she was born without kidneys. Can you imagine what life must be for such a child? She’s older than my youngest, but looks much younger. You should have seen her mother’s face. So happy.

posted by Imshin 15:09

Palestinians and Al-Qaeda trained by Iraqi intelligence, in Iraq
The Shin Bet has revealed that last month it apprehended three Palestinian terrorists that had been trained in Iraq, along with Al-Qaeda operatives, by the Iraqi intelligence service. (Ynet)

posted by Imshin 15:08

Brave kid
The caller who tipped off the police last week about the terrorist in the bus stop at Umm Al-Fakhm junction was an Israeli Arab. His call prevented the terrorist from getting on a bus and maybe killing tens of innocents. As it happened, policeman Moshe Hezkiya was killed and the 17 year-old caller, Rami Mahmid, was critically injured. He showed great courage by asking the terrorist for his cell phone in order to call a friend. He actually called the police with the terrorist’s own cell phone! I wish him a full recovery.

posted by Imshin 15:07

John Pilger rewrites Middle Eastern history to suit his politics, in a British ITV documentary, said to be not only violently biased against Israel and one-sided, but full of false facts and innuendoes. The documentary was sensitively aired a few hours after the end of Yom Kippur, so that British Jews, just having been hopefully forgiven for their sins, were provoked into beginning the new year by sinning before God "by profanation of thy name" and "by impurity of the lips". The network’s chairman, Michael Green, was not amused. Neither was the Israeli embassy.

Just so there wouldn’t be any misunderstandings of his imaginative version of events, Pilger also published an article in the UK Mirror saying, among other things that “Shortly after it was founded in 1948, Israel controlled, mostly as a result of a United Nations partition and partly by force, a total of 78 per cent of historic Palestine”. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the world: We are really really really sorry we fought back, when attacked by five regular armies. This was certainly inexcusable violence and we’re so sorry and ashamed we’ve all decided to leave, en masse, right now, all five and a half million of us. We’ve decided Golders Green is a much nicer place to live. See you soon!

“The Palestinian suicide bombers and their mass murder of innocents have hardened Israeli public opinion, but what is seldom reported is that they are a relatively recent phenomenon”. Oh, right, my policeman friend who still has nightmares of the body parts he encountered strewn all over Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv back in 1994 just has an active imagination.

He says that "Nine-tenths of Palestinians killed by the Israelis are civilians; 45 per cent are teenagers and children". this si a particularly wicked distortion. By saying civilians, he obviously means people who do not recieve a salary from any Palestinian security forces, because according to this ICT analysis "Over 50 percent of the Palestinians killed were actively involved in fighting - and this does not include stone-throwers or "unknowns"". And according to the same ICT analysis, 37% of the Palestinian victims were under twenty years old (not 45%). It is reasonable to assume that many Palestinian combatants would be between the ages of 17 and 19, isn’t it? Throwing the statistics for the over-17’s in with the little kiddies is a rather obvious distortion. If you take into account that the percentage of Palestinian female victims, including female children is extremely low, you can see that this was no indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, as Pilger falsely claims.

I couldn’t read it all. Too aggravating.

Pilger , by the way, is adamant that the documentary is completely accurate: "Our historical adviser was one of Israel's most distinguished historians”. The article doesn’t elaborate. Hmmm, I wonder who it could be.

posted by Imshin 13:44

Gil Shterzer has found an excellent Israeli blog called "Mideast: On Target", which offers very interesting commentary about the situation.

From yesterday's posts: "The quiet of the past weeks is also in the ear of the listener. Reported, but not emphasized, have been almost daily mortar and rocket attacks in Gaza as well as frequent shootings in both the West Bank and Gaza. As long as few Israelis were dying, it was deemed peaceful.

The attacks of the past few days are the result of a number of factors, bad luck being the first. Second, the shock of the IDF successes of the past months is wearing off and the terrorists are adapting to the new reality of IDF presence in the territories. Simultaneously, for the soldiers of the IDF the action of the first weeks of the operation is slipping into the danger of routine, as it is impossible to remain "alert" in perpetuity.

Last but not least, the terrorist organizations are hard-pressed to show the Palestinian population that they have not been destroyed by the IDF activity, and as a result are stepping up their attempts, understanding that at this stage quantity is more important than quality: we are likely to see a surge of poorly prepared attempts, most of which (like 99+%) will fail, but an occasional one will get through. With tragic results".

One of Gil's readers, Haggai, comments that he "started checking that site earlier this year after seeing a great talk by Elliot Chodoff" one of the contributors to the blog "about terrorism. As a prime example of how terrorists have been hoodwinking the world for decades, he explained how only one country was accused of violating international law after the Entebbe raid. No accusations were made against the various states who sponsored the terrorists, and none were made against Libya and Uganda for having allowed the hijackers to land the plane on their soil--the only country which technically violated any existing law was Israel, which of course landed in Uganda without permission to rescue the hostages!"

posted by Imshin 06:28

Where is Fred Lapides getting all these anti-Palestinian cartoons? Do you think he’s had them commissioned specially? Maybe he rubbed out Sharon and pasted in Arafat’s equally ugly mug.

Could there actually be people out there who dislike Arafat AND have a sense of humor?
posted by Imshin 23:18

Prices of flour and bread going up again.
posted by Imshin 22:49

It looks like Tawfiq Tirawi won’t win any popularity contests in the West Bank
This morning I heard someone (sorry, I was driving, I didn’t catch who it was), on Israel radio’s Reshet Bet, explaining why Palestinians won’t be very sorry if Israel gets its hands on West Bank general intelligence chief, Tawfiq Tirawi, currently holed up with Arafat. Besides his involvement in terrorist attacks against Israelis, he’s also known to be responsible for the murders without trial (following horrific torture) of many Palestinians suspected of being land merchants and collaborators. The guy on Reshet Bet radio said he also ran a particularly violent protection racket, and established a network of brothels in refugee camps, enticing local young women to work in them.

Not a very nice man.

posted by Imshin 15:09

More Israeli inhumanity: Palestinian terrorism victim's kidney was transplanted in a Palestinian child from East Jerusalem.
From Israeli Guy: "The family of 19 year old Scottish yeshiva student Yoni Jesner, who was murdered in Thursday’s suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, donated his organs to be transplanted. Yoni’s kidney was transplanted by Israeli doctors in 7 year old Yasmin Abu Ramila, a Palestinian from the village Akeb in East Jerusalem. Story from Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, I wonder if it will be mentioned by any foreign media".
posted by Imshin 13:50

Life-prolonging machines are not necessarily enemies
In another follow-up of the Haaretz article about the Steinberg public commission on the treatment of terminally ill patients, that I linked to, an Israeli sufferer of Lou Gehrig’s disease describes how a respiratory device has enriched his life for the last three years. He says that prior to his being put on the respirator, he had hinted to his family that, when the time came, he would prefer not to be put on such a machine. He now says that his three years on the respirator have been the most beautiful and productive of his life.

posted by Imshin 13:39

Once again, Israel single-handedly prevents ever-lasting world peace from spontaneously coming into being
Suddenly, Abu Mazen was just about to be appointed Palestinian prime minister. Funny how we only ever hear about these initiatives after they have been rendered unfeasible by Israeli activities.

posted by Imshin 13:38

France appeals to Israel not to harm Arafat
I think we should look out for Arafat’s safety just as much as France looks out for Israel’s safety.

posted by Imshin 13:38

Stephen F. Hayes pours light on the Scott Ritter affair in the Wall Street Journal. It seems he sold out for less than half a million dollars. What a fool.
posted by Imshin 06:32

"Arafat: Sharon wants to kill me"
Right! Him and another few million Israelis!
posted by Imshin 06:22

OK, that’s it for me. Whatever happens, I’ll have to learn about it tomorrow morning.
According to Ynet (Hebrew link) there have been clashes this evening in Ramallah, Nablus and Tulkarm between Israeli soldiers and tens of Palestinian demonstrators who wished to show solidarity with Arafat. Palestinians claim that soldiers shot tear gas and bullets in the center of Ramallah to keep demonstrators from reaching Arafat’s compound.
posted by Imshin 00:40

Big excitements in the Arafat compound
Ten minutes ago loudspeakers told everyone to get out of the compound and surrounding buildings. It seems they mean to blast something. I really have to get to bed but I can't miss this.
posted by Imshin 00:02

home