Stunning Israel: New Photo Feature!

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Featuring some stunning "amateur" photographs of Israel from around the world...

Darfur & Israel: Seeing the story in black and white (Updated)

When you mention Darfur refugees, most Israelis think about the hundreds of Sudanese who have streamed into Israel this year and the controversy and confusion over what the government should do with them.

However, Dr. Drora Zarfati, an ophthalmologist from the Emek Medical Center in Afula, sees the issue of refugees from Darfur in a different light, so to speak - she's just returned from two weeks of performing dozens of eyesight restoring surgical procedures, and treating ocular diseases for south Sudanese refugees at the Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya.

Read the rest.

Update: Aliza Olmert, wife of prime minister Ehud, writes a moving piece at Ynet News about her encounter with refugees arriving in Israel.

Meanwhile, through the looking glass, the usual yammering screed:

Sudan's defense minister, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, has accused "24 Jewish organizations" of "fueling the conflict in Darfur" last week in an interview with a Saudi newspaper. Hussein was interviewed during an official state visit to the Saudi kingdom last week.

(...sigh)

How might Tony Soprano put it? "We got ya' f-kin' Jew conspiracy riiiight heah, babe."

Camel Jumping for Fun & Prophet!

,,,and now that I've got your attention, may I wish you all a Shabbat Shalom, and have a great weekend...

Three Weeks, Three Thousand Years

Worshipers thronging the Western Wall, Jerusalem
(Photo: Dave Bender)

Aish.com has a comprehensive page of links to well-written articles about Tisha B'Av, beginning this Monday evening until Tuesday night.

"Tisha B'Av marks the day when God walked out on us, and took His house with Him."

Worth reading.

I commemorated last Tisha B'Av in the northern Israeli town of Rosh Pina, close to Lebanon as Hizbullah rockets and IDF artillery alternately thundered in the background. May those scenes and sounds not return.

What now for the Palestinian Authority?

Click image for a candid video interview with Toameh,
on media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Highly-respected journalist Khaled Abu Toameh offers a clear-eyed, close-up assessment of methods Israel and the world community should consider in dealing with the Palestinian Authority. His analysis comes in light of the power-struggle and chaos in Gaza and the West Bank, and the violent ideological chasm between Fatah and Hamas:

• The January 2006 election that brought Hamas to power was mostly about: "Let's punish these Fatah thieves." Hamas was building schools and kindergartens and clinics, while the PLO was building a casino and villas for its leaders. I believe some 30-35 percent of the Palestinians who voted for Hamas did so as a vote of protest because they were unhappy with the way the Palestinian Authority was running the show.
• Let Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO and Fatah start rebuilding their institutions, reform themselves, get rid of the corruption, and come up with a new list of candidates. Then run in another free and democratic election and offer the Palestinians a better alternative to Hamas.
• The Palestinians do not need more guns and military training. If the U.S. has $86 million and wants to help the Palestinians, then help them build civil institutions, help them build freedom, educate them about good things. What's the point in taking 200 Presidential Guards to Jericho to train them? Who are they going to fight at the end of the day? In Gaza they were defeated.
• What should Israel do at this stage? Nothing. There is no one to deal with on a serious basis on the Palestinian side. Abbas doesn't even have control over his own Fatah militias. Israel should just sit and wait. Don't repeat the mistake of unilateralism, when Israel left Gaza to Hamas and Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda-affiliated groups.
• It is ironic that the West is supporting the guys who are suppressing the moderates and people who want democracy. The West is actually undermining its own goals. Worth reading.
  

Here's a candid video interview with Toameh, on media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

(Full disclosure: I worked with Toameh at The Jerusalem Post, both as an interviewer/producer for their internet radio operation, and as a night-desk editor on the print edition)

British anti-terror crackdown: 'watch out for people doing, 'er, stuff'

This just in (from the Minister of Silly Walks, apparently - aka, the inimitable Iowahawk):

London - British public safety officials today increased the national alert level to "Quite Elevated Indeed" -- the highest category possible -- and appealed to UK citizens to "keep a sharp lookout for diverse people engaged in activities."

"We ask the public to report any behaviours by various people that may or may not be of a suspicious nature," said Lt. Clive Jameson of the Metropolitan Police Service. "We further ask the public to be especially vigilant for activities of broad stratas of people who may be from countries of some sort, especially those within the eastern and/or western hemisphere."

The elevated alert levels come on the heels of a week when London and Glasgow narrowly escaped potential events that intelligence experts say may have been related to diverse groups of people doing things. Initially police had specifically asked the public for information relating to doctors driving automobiles, but that initial warning brought angry denunciations from the British Medical Association and the UK Automobile Association.

BREAKING: BBC reporter freed (updated)

MSNBC is reporting that BBC journalist Allan Johnston has been freed, according to an AP report:

Johnston was not seen after the announcement, but the Islamic militant group said he was in the custody of its military wing and meeting with deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

Now, what about the eight Israeli soldiers STILL
in Hamas and Hizbullah captivity, including
Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eyal Regev?

Here's an interesting debate on the issue of releasing Palestinian prisoners to get their safe return. More on this here, here and here.

Update: a powerful message from Aish:

"We all have a tendency to think, 'I am only one person! What can I possibly do to help bring the captured soldiers home to their families?' But if every person who is reading these words would take one small step to bring Gilad, Eldad, and Udi home, then together we could make a real difference. Remember, even a marathon starts with a single first step.
What can you do? The following are a few suggestions:

• Commit to keeping a new mitzvah (spiritual precept) in the soldiers' honor, for example, lighting Shabbat candles every week before sunset, refraining from eating meat and milk at the same meal, attending a weekly Torah class
• Write to your representatives in the government. Tell them that you haven't forgotten about Israel's captured soldiers, and that they shouldn't either
• Forward this article to ten friends to raise awareness
• Give charity to merit the soldiers
• Donate directly to the campaign to release the soldiers: http://www.banim.org/en/index_en.html
• Recite the Soldiers' Psalm (Psalm 102) Listen to the Psalm in the original Hebrew.

July 4th, 1976: Entebbe rescue hero's last letter found (exclusive video)

• Entebbe hero Yoni Netanyahu's last letter discovered
• Lottery winners share 50 million shekel prize

Click on the screen for the latest
Israel Ch. 2 news update.

Israeli-American baseball bitchfest

Bradley Burston over at Haaretz - whose iconiclastic take on things I usually like and respect gets all deep-y and socio-psychological-ish about - best be sitting down for this one, kids - baseball in Israel:

"Dual loyalty, baseball, and the Israeli psyche

"For the immigrant, the majority culture is inevitably despotic."

And his windy opining gets much more tendentious - let's just make that "dopey," on a slow news day, apparently - from there... But the talkbacks at the bottom of the page? Each one a gem of logic, passion and reason, I tell 'ya. /sarc tag off

More about "kadur basis" here (and may God help us with translating this game for the local announcers...).

Here's an AP video about the first-ever game of the Israel Baseball League (be patient with the ad first):

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Screens up, Sulu: 'Electronic Jihad software, 2.0'

From Information Week:

"The "Electronic Jihad Program" is part of the long-term vision jihadi Web site Al-jinan.org has to use the Internet as a weapon, something that affects any organization that relies on the Web.

"Electronic Jihad allows users to target specific IP addresses for attack in order to take any servers running at those IP addresses offline. The application even includes a Windows-like interface that lets users choose from a list of target Web sites provided via the Al-jinan site, select an attack speed (weak, medium, or strong), and the click on the "attack" button."

Expose: Former al Qaeda-UK jihad member tells all

From The Daily Mail: 'Terror ringleader' is brilliant NHS doctor.
An Iraqi junior doctor and a brilliant neurologist working for the NHS are among the suspects being quizzed over the series of bomb attacks across Britain, it emerged today.

Or, "Well, that didn't work out so great..." Iowahawk at his computer screen-drenching finest:

"Ever have "one of those days?" Sure, all of us go through the occasional rough patch, but I swear there are times when I think Allah must really have it in for me. I mean, I know the "Big Guy" is supposed to have a sense of humor, but do I always have to be the punchline?

..."Take for example this last week. A few mates and I had been planning a big martyrdom weekend for quite a while; it's something we first began discussing a few years ago in medical school back in Amman. We were sitting around the dorm eating pizza, cramming for a big anatomy final, when Ali said 'you know, after graduation, we should get together for something really big.'

"Anyhoo, Achmed finally says, "how about packing cars with explosives and killing hundreds of random infidels in a coordinated series of gigantic fireballs?" And we're like, f***kin' A! Not only would we be it an awesome bonding experience (with plenty of Paradise poontang, LOL), we would be doing a valuable community service. Okay, so we high-fived and made a solemn promise that we'd target two years after graduation for the big weekend prank blowout.

..."Get this: Achmed, whose only job it was to call in a simple f***ing detonation code, switched his cell carrier to get the new iPhone and forgot to transfer his goddamn detonation contact list. So I'm like, "how about Bilal? Did he explode? Please tell me exploded." The dopey expressions around the room told me otherwise. Faaaack. Now there's NO dead infidels, NO horny virgins, and I'm out one leased Mercedes with a £12,000 balloon payment."

Read it all. You'll laugh, you'll cry. You'll spit beer out your nose. (which beats cryin' over said beer, right, laddies?)