Laser-etched Spock matzah (Klingon heksher)

Mideast mayhem giving you an appetite? Go snack on this.

"For the laser geeks out there, 100 power / 60% speed (on a 35W CO2 laser)."

And, for all you "covenentally-challenged" readers out there, here's another load for your storehouse of useless knowledge (Jews already know this, genetically):

In his autobiography I Am Not Spock, Nimoy wrote that he based it on the Priestly Blessing performed by Jewish Kohanim with both hands, thumb to thumb in this same position, representing the Hebrew letter Shin (ש), which has three upward strokes similar to the position of the thumb and fingers in the salute. The letter Shin here stands for Shaddai, meaning "Almighty (God)", and has a special significance in Judaism. Nimoy wrote that when he was a child, his grandfather took him to an Orthodox synagogue. There he saw the blessing performed, and was very impressed by it.

"The accompanying spoken blessing, Live long and prosper... is similar to the Hebrew greeting, "Shalom aleichem" (peace be upon you) and its reply, "Aleichem shalom" (upon you be peace)."

Iran & the Winds of War

Joshua Muravchik, in a powerfully written Wall Street Journal op-ed, believes that "Iran is making a mistake that may lead the Middle East into a broader conflict."

"Consider the pell-mell events of recent weeks. Iran imprisons four Americans on absurd charges only weeks after seizing 15 British sailors on the high seas. Iran's Revolutionary Guard is caught delivering weapons to the Taliban and explosives to Iraqi terrorists. A car bomb in Lebanon is used to assassinate parliament member Walid Eido, killing nine others and wounding 11 more.

"At the same time, Fatah al-Islam, a shady group linked to Syria, launches an attack on the Lebanese army from within a Palestinian refugee area, beheading several soldiers. Tehran trumpets further progress on nuclear enrichment as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeats his call for annihilating Israel, crowing that "the countdown to the destruction of this regime has begun." Hamas seizes control militarily in Gaza. Katyusha rockets are launched from Lebanon into northern Israel for the first time since the end of last summer's Israel-Hezbollah war."

"The apparent meaning of all of this pointless provocation and bullying is that the axis of radicals--Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah--is feeling its oats. In part its aim is to intimidate the rest of us, in part it is merely enjoying flexing its muscles. It believes that its side has defeated America in Iraq, and Israel in Gaza and Lebanon. Mr. Ahmadinejad recently claimed that the West has already begun to "surrender," and he gloated that " final victory . . . is near." It is this bravado that bodes war."

Important reading.

Israeli - Palestinian prisoner swap: video debate

Worth watching:

Society

Naomi Hazan, former Knesset member and Professor of Political Science and a well known human rights advocate and Frimet Roth, whose daughter Malki was murdered in the suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem's Sbarro cafe in August 2001, discuss the rights and wrongs of the just-decided move by the Israel government.

IDF soldiers Gilad Schalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were abducted by terrorists one year ago. Eight Israeli soldiers are kidnapped or missing in action.

More posts on this issue here and here.

Israeli medical marvel: bloodstream-sized robot

Incredible:

"Israeli scientists have actually created the imaginary technology depicted by the 1966 science fiction movie Fantastic Voyage, in which a submarine is reduced to microscopic size, injected into the bloodstream and able to travel through the body to provide medical treatment.

"A tiny 'submarine' robot has been designed by Dr. Nir Schwalb of the Judea and Samaria College in Ariel and Oded Solomon of the mechanical engineering department of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

They say it has the unique ability to 'crawl' through tubes with the width of human veins and arteries, even going against the flow of blood at the speed in which it passes through blood vessels."

Also guess it's goin' on the British boycott list, huh? Maybe they should use the micro-robot to clear out the crap in their brains.

Go astonish yer'self with more Israeli medical advances here.

Fatah prisoner release: signing a death warrant? (editorial cartoon)

From Haaretz:

"[Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert announced the plan on Monday at the close of a four-way summit with Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II, saying that Israel would only release prisoners not held for deaths of its citizens.

"As a gesture of goodwill toward the Palestinians, I will bring before the Israeli cabinet at its next meeting a proposal to free 250 Fatah prisoners who do not have blood on their hands, after they sign a commitment not to return to violence," Olmert said."

---

"This is a wrong, harmful message that will not strengthen the Palestinian Authority. It will only weaken it," Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu said Tuesday in response to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to release Palestinian prisoners.

"[Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, also known as] Abu Mazen will be hurt by such a decision," continued Netanyahu. "Giving them guns and releasing their prisoners is a big mistake."

More on Bibi & Co. here.

Hamas: IDF captive being held in bomb-rigged room in Gaza

From Haaretz:

"Channel 2 television reported Sunday that an Israel Defense Forces soldier captured a year ago was being held in the southern Gaza Strip in an underground room inside a booby-trapped building.

"The television report said [Gilad] Shalit was being cared for by two captors with whom he had formed a "cordial" relationship and he was being treated fairly.

"Shalit's living quarters were described as a two-room underground store with enough supplies to last two weeks, accessible down a ladder through a 15-meter deep shaft which the report said was lined with explosives."

There are at present eight Israeli soldiers kidnapped or missing in action:

Almost a year has passed since the unprovoked abduction of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser on the Israeli side of the Lebanese border, an action that precipitated widespread confrontation between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hizbullah terrorist organization. To date no word has been heard from the two captive soldiers, and neither their families nor the government of Israel have any knowledge of their whereabouts or their current state of health.

Two weeks prior to their abduction, on June 25, another soldier, Gilad Shalit, was abducted as well, this time on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza. His family, too, anxiously awaits news from him. Especially grave is the fact that these unprovoked abductions were carried out on sovereign Israeli territory.

Read the following brief bios of the three. For their sakes, and for ours.

And do absolutely not forget Zvi Feldman, Yehuda Katz, Guy Hever, Zachary Baumel and Ron Arad.

Oh, and speaking of Palestinians holding hostages, of course there's this, a video showing BBC reporter Alan Johnston, held by Palestinian militants, begging for mercy while bound in what appears to be a suicide bomber's vest.

Israeli aid to Gaza: by the numbers (Thursday update)

The IDF just released stats on food, medicine and other aid Israel's trying to pass over to Palestinians through the Erez crossing point with the Gaza Strip. That is, while Hamas' shooters aren't firing at them - or into the backs of terrified Palestinians fleeing into Israel...

(Thursday update) IDF SPOKESPERSON ANNOUNCEMENT:

• Over 400 tons of food products were transferred via the Kerem Shalom crossing: 130 tons flour, 49 tons rice, 49 tons sugar, 5 tons tea, 8 tons milk powder, 33 tons crushed lentils, 19.7 tons lentils, 30 tons margarine, 18.5 tons barley, 34 tons macaroni, 20 tons beans, 15 tons humus and 2 tons soup.
• 7 tons of disinfectants were also transferred through the crossing.
• 160,000 liters of diesel fuel, 40,000 liters of gasoline and 40 tons of gas were transferred via the Nahal Oz fuel terminal.
• 8 injured Palestinians were transferred from Gaza hospitals to Israeli hospitals for medical treatment.
• Overnight, Palestinians at the Erez crossing interested in crossing over to Egypt were assisted to do so.
• Approximately 100 Palestinians with dual citizenships crossed into Israel through the Erez crossing.
• 2 Red Cross surgeons passed into the Gaza Strip through Erez in order to assist hospitals in the region.

C'mon, go on and guess how appreciative Palestinians responded to the humanitarian gesture...

Three people were lightly wounded and at least seven others reported in shock after a barrage of five Kassam rockets hit the western Negev on Wednesday evening, bringing the day's total rocket hits to eight.

More about previous Israeli attempts to aid Gazan Palestinians is here, in a report I prepared almost exactly one year ago about the Karni crossing point (including an exclusive podcast on the scene with Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev).

Cargo waiting to cross from Israel into Gaza at
the Karni crossing point, June, 2006.
Ongoing Palestinian terror attacks against troops
and civilian personnel forced the facility's closure.
(Photo: Dave Bender)

More on the current situation in Gaza, as of Wednesday night is here.

Batter up! Israel swings into 1st-ever pro baseball season (UPDATED)

"Holy Land hardball: it only took 5,767 years"

From Ynet News:

The Israel Baseball League is to double the seating capacity of the Yarkon Field on Sunday night to accommodate the expected 2,000 spectators for the league's Opening Night.

“Ticket requests have been awesome,” said IBL’s business operations director Bob Ruxin in a press release. “Israeli communities, youth teams and companies are organizing group outings, droves of North Americans have scheduled visit to Israel to coincide with the Opener, and we even have a fan coming in from India just to catch the first game,” Ruxin continued.

ESPN notes that Israel has drafted legend Sandy Koufax:

Forty-one years after he retired from baseball, Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax was the final player chosen in the draft to stock the six teams for the inaugural season of the Israel Baseball League.
Koufax, 71, was picked by the Modi'in Miracle in the draft conducted by former major league general manager Dan Duquette, who heads baseball operations for the league.

Former US ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, the future commissioner of the country’s first baseball league agrees, saying that “Israel is ready for a third major sport”. More Israel B-ball stats and background here.

...and this just in: proof positive that baseball is clearly referred to numerous times in the Bible (Hey - it even starts off, "In the Big Inning").

Israel Baseball League

WNET New York will air the inaugural game, on Sunday, July 1st.

And closer to home -- umm, depending where you're standing -- American Jewish Life editor Benyamin Cohen just sent me this:

To say Eric Holtz is a baseball fanatic is like saying Michaelangelo could paint. That's why the 41-year-old father of three id leaving his successful clothing manufacturing business in upstate New York this summer to join the first-ever Israeli baseball league and live out his lifelong dream on a baseball diamond in the Holy Land.

Growing contentions that Assad was behind Katyusha attack

Katyusha strike: truck-mounted,
multiple-launch at Israel

From Infolive.tv:

Kuwait's Al Syasah newspaper says Syrian President Bashar Assad is linked to Sunday's Katyusha rocket strike on northern Israel. The report, however, did not detail the reputed extent of the Syrian leader's involvement.

The newspaper on Monday said that Assad was angry over the Arab League's stand on Syria's involvement in Lebanon.

From Ynet News:

Farid Ghadri, a Syrian exile, and head of a Syrian opposition party which calls for the end of the Assad regime, told Ynetnews that Syrian President Basher Assad was responsible for the rocket attacks. Ghadri, head of the Reform Party of Syria, is based in Washington DC, and has just completed a week-long visit to Israel, where he addressed the Knesset, and toured the Golan Heights.

More photos from last summer's war against Hizbullah are here.

Possible cancer cure? Israeli zapper kills brain cancer cells

Hey, remember that UK doctors' plan to boycott Israeli colleagues and medical advances? Hmm. Well, feel free to boycott this, yutzes:

An Israeli-developed treatment that specifically targets rapidly growing cancer cells with electrical fields shows great promise in treating patients with brain cancer.

The Novo-TTF (Tumor-Treating Fields) device, invented by Technion Professor emeritus Yoram Palti, uses electrical fields to disrupt tumor growth by interfering with cell division of cancerous cells, causing them to stop proliferating and die off instead of dividing and growing. Healthy brain cells rarely divide and have different electrical properties than cancerous brain cells. This allows the device to target cancer cells without affecting the healthy cells.

"This is a new general modality for treating cancer. In a way it's similar to radiation, it's physical in the same sense, but the major difference is that there are no side effects..."

"This trial showed a big change, and on the basis of these results, the FDA has approved going on to bigger trials. So far, at least in the lab, all types of tumors have been sensitive to the treatment, so we're hopeful that it can treat all forms of cancer," he added.

That's right. A possible miraculous, dramatic cure for certain types of brain cancer - and maybe others. But hey, it's from those awful Israelis, so, like, fagedaboudit, right? More on this developing technology here.

Oh, and while we're at it, talking about them 'orrid Joos? Take a look at this news report video of an Israeli army officer and little Palestinian girl in a Jerusalem health care facility. Stick around for her parents' comments: