Israeli spy bird in Sudan: not what you think

Sudanese media reported Thursday that officials had captured a bird carrying spying equipment for Israel.

At least that's what Israeli media reports. The story about Israeli feathered spies is getting a bit tired. First it's a griffon vulture in Saudi Arabia, then a European bee-eater in Turkey, now a hawk in Sudan.

So it's time to fess up. We have sent a few hawks to Sudan indeed, but not for spying. This time it's a purely political mission, to do just that:

We used to send pigeons on such missions, but came to an inevitable conclusion: a hawk would carry a much bigger payload.

So there.

Another Russian demotivator

So, everyone got his pants down already?

The dead who guard Mount Everest

Read this.

iPhone 5S specs leaked, customers lining up

In what is considered to be an implementation of the next revolutionary development from Steve Jobs' legacy list, Apple is preparing an even more radical step forward in its R&D and marketing: iPhone 5S.

According to the leaked info, the new model, as compared to its wildly successful predecessor -  iPhone 5, will have:

• The same hardware
• The same software
• The same color scheme: 1. black and 2. white
• The same packaging.

The only difference will be in the letter S and its hitherto undisclosed styling, which is being zealously guarded in the company vault at an undisclosed location. One insider claims that the styling was elaborated by the late Mr Jobs himself.

The team of psychologists working on the iPhone 5S project predicts a wave of pre-orders that may overflow the Interwebs capacity. Apple is also hiring a fleet of trucks to ferry discarded older models to be buried somewhere.

Release of the new model is being geared for May, when the mild weather will cause less suffering to the queuing overnight masses.

Samsung refused to respond to the rumors.

Update: Apple spokesperson rejected the insinuation that "S" stands for "Suckers"

So, what do we mean by proportional? Not what the anti-Zionists mean, for sure.

There's this website that's new to me, courtesy of the Elder of Ziyon, and he has the link to the site. There you will find this headline: What's a Proportional Response? and this wonderful memo (and therefore quote) from Ben Gurion, explaining an action against the Syrians in 1955: "Ben Gurion's explanation for the background of the action:

"We're in a difficult situation with the Arabs, because when they wish to destroy or murder, they don't have to kill hundreds of us at a time. Instead, they make our life miserable day by day. Maybe they can't do otherwise, since they're afraid to send an entire military unit against us. So they send a small squad, and the squad crosses the border and waits for nightfall. Under cover of darkness they wander around until they find an object or a person, and they destroy it or kill the person. Their intention is to do this for years and wear us down...

We can't do what they do, even if we wished to, because we can't kill civillians, say to start killing Arab civilians we meet along the way..

So we have two options. We can resign ourselves to this situation, or we can not resign ourselves to it. This government was created to not resign itself to such a situation. I announced this in the Knesset. Based on that announcement, I called [Eedson] Burns [the UN commander in the area] and informed him that this government would respond and he should tell [Gamal] Nasser...

On the Sea of Galillee they've got a system. They shoot at our fishermen, and they shoot at our police boats. The entire lake is in our territory, no-one disputes that. It's the begining of the fishing season, and they've been shooting a lot. It's merely a coincidence that none of our people was hurt, but the boats have been hit. We can't accept this situation... In Syria there's no efficient regime, they're perpetually on the verge of a putsch. Either we'll aquiesce with the loss of our right to fish, or we'll have to destroy their fortifications. We could do as they do, and simply shoot back, but then we'll hit their civilians, beause their troops are all protected by their fortifications. I said: we're not going to target their civilians, their women and children, their villages, so we'll have to take and destroy their fortifications."

By: Brian Goldfarb

A monumental failure - but so lovely!

One of the sweetest sights ever.

Simply Che

It's already number 17 in the series. How the time flies...

I think it suits him.

Dave Brubeck, the Unsquare Man - RIP

Not a choice of many for the tribute to the great man, I know. Still, here it goes:



RIP, Unsquare Man. See you later.

The politics of petulance or march of the morons?

Watching (from afar, I haste to add) the primary elections in Likud, I haven't been able to get rid of a rising sense of unease. The fact is that Bibi, sensing the general shift to the right in the general population, discouraged by total lack of progress since the Oslo agreements and, even more significantly, since the Gaza pullout, is exploiting the popular (populist?) sentiment. Starting at the merger with Lieberman's Israel Beiteinu, rather far more extreme and populist than was the accepted norm in Likud, populist as it was at the best of times, and finishing (willingly or not) with the disastrous primaries. Rumors of Bibi's own deep displeasure with the results are hardly of any consolation to a watcher.

And my own sense of unease is not unique, witness the ToI article The politics of petulance by David Horovitz, whom no one of any sense would accuse of a leftist trend. With his typical elan and precision, David laments the downfall in the primaries of a group, best represented by Benny Begin, Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan. No doves, all three, but principled, realistic, clever and personally as far away from political dirt, financial corruption and other accoutrements of political power as possible.

And who are the up and coming new stars? Says David:

They elevated Danny Danon, a man so blind to the critical nature of Israel’s relationship to the United States as to publicly and repeatedly spit in the face of the current US administration. They raised up Miri Regev, she of the iniquitous reference to Sudanese migrants as “a cancer in our midst.”

Personally I would add Tzipi Hotovely to the list, to balance the comparison - she fully matches the pair chosen by David. Who adds, totally true in my opinion:

Nobody who looks closely at Israel’s geostrategic situation can much blame the Israeli public for swinging to the right. But that does not alleviate the dismay at the sight of the Israeli party of government choosing a Knesset slate overloaded with empty populists, and ditching credible, experienced politicians who recognize the sensitivities and discretions required for effective rule.

Yeah... sensitivity and discretion of Danny Danon and Miri Regev - but this is not a ROFL (Rolling On Floor Laughing) situation, far from it. After all, we are discussing the makeup of our ruling political party which, one can bet, will gain power after the coming election.

And what David Horovitz, being an editor of a serious media outfit, cannot allow himself to say openly in his article, I can add here. The common trait unifying the pair of the rising stars mentioned by him (and, in her own way, shared by Ms Hotovely, whose rather higher IQ is fully compensated by her blabbermouth qualities and incendiary politics), is outstanding stupidity. Added to the empty populism, noted by David, it leads to incessant rabble-rousing and political provocations of the worst kind.

Danny Danon.

Danny Danon.

Danny Danon.

Miri Regev.

Tzipi Hotovely.

An thus we are going for elections, very much preordained by the current mood of the Israeli population and the existing political map. And November 2012 is already behind us, but let's listen to one more voice (not of a rabid lefty, I can assure you):

Remember November 2012. Remember the month in which Bibi and Lieberman gave Hamas the seal of approval and essentially affixed the state of Hamastan in Gaza. It was a month in which we marked another amazing international achievement and bowed our heads before the world's recognition of the state of Palestine in the West Bank; a month in which a politician who claims the Palestinians are merely Arab-speaking parasites becomes part of the mainstream in the ruling party's top echelon...

And this is the way it rolls...

Watcher’s Council Nominations – Playing Politics With Other People’s Money Edition

Council Submissions

• The Noisy Room – Policing the Schutzstaffel
• The Razor – Why I Oppose the Nomination of Susan Rice to Secretary of State (and You Should Too)
• The Political Commentator – Obama first-term critique! Failure, failure, failure…!
• Joshuapundit-‘Palestine’ – A Celebration At The Funeral
• The Independent Sentinel – Dear Sarah Palin – Is A Third Political Party Being Formed?
• Simply Jews – The phantoms of ceasefire, proportionality and other Middle East myths – Part I
• The Mellow Jihadi – Self-Reliance Versus the Collective
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – More Than Air
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Why I *still* don’t watch Sunday Night Football
• Bookworm Room – From the same people who brought you the constitutional right to privacy: “You have no privacy.”
• The Right Planet – Obama Admin Refuses to Criticize Egypt’s New Constitution That Allows Slavery
• Gay Patriot – Cut off* NPR & PBS in return for higher tax rate on “wealthy”?
• Rhymes With Right – Bob Costas Uses Halftime Show To Trash Second Amendment
• The Glittering Eye -The Chicken Game
• VA Right! - Over the River and Through the Woods and Off the Cliff We Go 

Honorable Mentions

Read more »

Adriana Lima naked uncensored

Is certainly not going to appear on these pages. Instead, my dear overexcited surfer, here comes a soothing picture of a crane during take-off:

Relax in your chair, breath shallowly and slowly and watch this picture for at least one(1) minute. Improvement guaranteed.

Raheem Kassam speaks for Israel (or at least its supporters)

Raheem Kassam over at The Commentator says all that needs to be said on the current position in the Middle East. I agree with virtually all that says, with some caveats over the the last few comments he makes.

Typical of his approach is the following, where he sums up all that makes Israel a shining example of a liberal, representative democracy, in stark contrast to all its neighbours: "Israel remains the most legitimate, functioning, transparent and safe democracy in the region. There is little chance...of Israel turning its back on this form of government that lends to enshrined freedoms not just for Jews, but for the many Christians, Muslims, Druze and Baha'i that live within Israel's borders. This is also true for women. It is true for homosexuals. It is true for young and old, for rich and poor - Israel is a model for the region. If anyone can doubt this, they are free to name another, but a list of Israel's neighbours does nothing to detract from this statement. Egypt, Iran, Iraq, [etc]"

I particularly like Kassam's final sentence: "For Britain, Israel's actions [in planning more 'settlements' in the Jerusalem area] are unpalatable. For Israel, Britain's reaction is unconscionable."

See what you think.

By: Brian Goldfarb

Now, if you really want to worry...

This, also from The Commentator, is scary, even if the comments below the article imply that it's not to be taken seriously.

Me? I take seriously everything the Ayatollah's and that monomaniac Ahmanedinejad does.

By: Brian Goldfarb

Why the Palestinians Will Never Win

This headline is copied from The Daily Beast article, penned by Michael Tomasky, once a Guardian reporter, now an editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. It is significant for two reasons. The first one is (mainly) in the incisive diagnosis:

First and foremost, if they'd been a nonviolent movement, they'd have had their state 20 years ago. No understanding at all of either the Jewish or the American conscience, which resists "resistance" at all costs but melts at the first sight of a person standing before a tank holding a rose.

Nuff said.

The second one is the author himself, once more or less faithfully toeing the anti-Israeli Guardian line. A brief reference to it could be found in the quote:

I've written this many times, and it hasn't always gone down well with my readers, particularly at the Guardian, as you might imagine.

Yes, we might.

The phantoms of ceasefire, proportionality and other Middle East myths - Part I

As usual, every flare-up of local conflict causes the usual buzzwords applied to it to be taken out of the drawer, dusted and presented via the helpful media to the bored audience. The manner of presentation differs somewhat, depending on the level of sympathy/disdain each specific media channel has toward the warring sides, but the motif remains by and large untouched.

To start with, the ceasefire, the truce, the taadiya, the Hudna. CNN, doing their best to be fair and balanced, presented the issue via the prism of one Nadia Hijab*. To be fair, Ms Hijab's affiliation was disclosed up front by CNN editor:

Nadia Hijab is Director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, and a frequent public speaker and media commentator. She also serves as senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies.

The main motif of the article was also presented fair and square by its headline:

Israel's mission in Gaza is not about security -- so what is it about?

The article is quite long, but its gist, and the main lie is conveniently placed in its first paragraph:

Let's be clear: Israel's latest operation in Gaza is not about security. Cease-fires between Hamas-ruled Gaza and Israel have brought security for months on end and there is ample evidence to show that Israel is largely responsible for truce breakdowns.

Let's be clear: there never was a ceasefire "between Hamas-ruled Gaza and Israel". For two reasons: formally Israel never signed any ceasefire "agreement", a half-hearted commitment to a ceasefire being usually given by Hamas to their Egyptian contacts. Israel is steadfastly refusing to negotiate with Hamas directly, for several good reasons I shall leave out of this post. The second and more important reason is that every single time the promise given by Hamas appeared to be another lie.

Some diligent soul(s) keeps a recorded history of Qassam attacks, and a quick browse through this Wiki link for year 2012 will show you that not a single month passes without Qassam "precipitation". Sometimes dripping, sometimes raining, sometimes pouring... Even if you exclude the 1500 or so rockets launched from Gaza during the Pillar of Cloud operation, it still leaves about 800 Qassams launched during the first ten moths of 2012, a respectable average of 80 per month.

I consider the above to be sufficient to dismiss the rest of the BS concocted by Ms Hijab. However, there are still some points that demand a response, their stupidity being irresistible. First of all - the reference to the "ample evidence to show that Israel is largely responsible for truce breakdowns" in the first paragraph. I have left the link intact, so you can check it for yourself. It includes 15 or so cases of alleged Israeli breaks of the ceasefire... from year 1949. I will not be deconstructing each "case", irresistible as they are, suffice to say that Ms Hijab, in her wisdom, doesn't mention the main cause of ceasefire breach, which is creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Well, the other 15 cases are more or less similar to that one, so it's not a big loss.

Another pearl of Ms Hijab's wisdom follows that bombastic first paragraph immediately:

Israel decided to escalate the conflict last Wednesday with its assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed al-Ja'abari despite a truce that had been observed by all Palestinian factions during the previous two days. And even though they knew that al-Ja'abari had just received a proposal for a permanent truce agreement with Israel, as revealed in Haaretz.

I shall refrain from discussing the wisdom of offing Mr al-Ja'abari** at the precise timing it was done and then making a sudden about-turn re the ground operation, this subject being mulled upon here in sufficient length. But what about that mysterious mention of al-Ja'abari receiving a proposal for a permanent truce and the link to Haaretz? Of course, the key word for a summary dismissal of this part of the story could have been "received", judiciously kept in place by Ms Hijab. Is it necessary to point out the difference between "received" and "accepted"? And when you go to the original Haaretz article (behind a $$wall), it appears that the so called "proposal" is not issued by some branch of our government, but is a fruit of imagination of one Gershon Baskin, peace activist, undoubtedly a good man, full of well-wishing, but hardly representing any official of any standing.

So much for ceasefire. Knowing the traditional Muslim view of Hudna (historically used as a tactic aimed at allowing the party declaring the hudna to regroup while tricking an enemy into lowering its guard.), one should make up one's mind on the subject. One should ask oneself: how many Qassam rockets or mortar grenades or anti-tank rockets constitute one single breach of ceasefire?

It is not an idle question. The main problem with most Western media lately (as far as so called "ceasefire" between Gaza and Israel is concerned) became the readiness of its pundits to accept the totally false premise of the Gaza/Israel situation as a mostly permanent ceasefire occasionally interrupted by flare-ups of violence of the kind we had recently with Pillar of Cloud.

Which premise is as far from the truth as it can possibly be. Further discussion of the issue of the so called "ceasefire", its effect on Israeli population and Israeli "disproportional" response - in the next part.


(*) Hijab is also "a headscarf worn by Muslim women; conceals the hair and neck and usually has a face veil that covers the face". I bet it's a coincidence, after all Nadia is also a fighter for women rights.

(**) Not directly related to the subject of this post, but the persona of al-Ja'abari, dead as he thankfully is, is worth of a short study.