The Fabulous Baker Boyz: the nasty is in the details...

James Baker: Split loyalties and the prospects for Israel

From The Nation:

Until now, there has been no concrete evidence that Baker’s loyalties are split, or that his power as Special Presidential Envoy–an unpaid position–has been used to benefit any of his corporate clients or employers. But according to documents obtained by The Nation, that is precisely what has happened. Carlyle has sought to secure an extraordinary $1 billion investment from the Kuwaiti government, with Baker’s influence as debt envoy being used as a crucial lever.

The secret deal involves a complex transaction to transfer ownership of as much as $57 billion in unpaid Iraqi debts. The debts, now owed to the government of Kuwait, would be assigned to a foundation created and controlled by a consortium in which the key players are the Carlyle Group, the Albright Group (headed by another former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright) and several other well-connected firms. Under the deal, the government of Kuwait would also give the consortium $2 billion up front to invest in a private equity fund devised by the consortium, with half of it going to Carlyle.

From The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:

While a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will have enormous implications for the security of the Middle East as a whole, Israel and other American regional partners should not try to second-guess this decision when it involves questions about whether the U.S. should put its soldiers in harm's way. However, the specific strategy that the Baker-Hamilton report proposes for facilitating an American pullback - the use of an international support group including Iran and Syria - poses serious problems that affect vital Israeli interests.

(H-T: Yidwithlid)

Mererhetoric has more.

Oh, what the hell - why be a stingy Jew, when we can go "whole-hog" - excuse the expression - huh, Jimbo? Here's a bucketful of links for the "Baker-impaired."

Blood Brothers: Is There a Jewish DNA?

An interesting look at the question, in - of all places - the Wall Street Journal:

It all began with a "serendipitous feeling" that hit him while he stumbled through Auschwitz in 2000. Like most visitors John Haedrich was deeply moved by what he saw. But this was something different. A kind of epiphany. Though raised a Christian, for reasons Mr. Haedrich cannot quite articulate, he began to suspect that he might be Jewish. Gradually, this hunch became too vital to ignore. He decided to investigate his origins by taking a DNA test, the results of which confirmed that he had, according to the test conclusion, "rather populous pedigree of Ashkenazi Polish Jews."

Read the rest here. More background is here.

Iran: Ahmadinejad gets his annual Jewish holiday fix

Been away all week, and unable to update the page, but I'm back with the latest:

(And they even got the Persian accent right in English)

Gaza: it's a family affair

Gaza: it's a family affair (Photo: archive)

From Haaretz:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday the government would react with
restraint to continuing Qassam attacks, saying Israel was hoping to give the cease-fire a chance to develop into further steps toward a peace process.
Olmert, who has said he was running out of patience with the ongoing
rocket attacks, did not tell the parliamentary committee what level of violence would prompt an Israeli reaction.

Do you suppose the following would do the trick?

Al Mullah Omar, 24, is a fighter for the Popular Resistance Committees. Anyone interested in attacking Israel can join the group, he said. All that matters is that fighters are willing to attack Israelis by any means, no matter how long the odds of success. The group's ethos of pure militancy has made it the fastest-growing armed wing in Gaza, aided, according to Israeli authorities, by generous funding from Iran. Omar expects his children to grow up to be fighters.

"If I have a son and he doesn't join the resistance, I'll snap his neck," Omar said.

But at least Omar's saying this during the "ceasefire," huh?

JerusalemOnline news update: Dec. 3rd (Video - Channel 2 TV)

• Olmert, Peretz lock horns over response to Kassams
• Thieves rob Hanukkah aid for Sderot residents
• Jerusalem of Gold glows, and parties, after dark

Click here or on image for latest
Israel Channel 2 news update

Age-old Christian-Muslim rift ends; Jews taking cover

'Peace Breaking Out' Index: IDF implores gov't not to widen 'ceasefire' to West Bank

SFX: DING!

SOUND UP: TELETYPE (under v/o)

V/O (1940's-style radio announcer): "And here's the latest 'Peace Breaking Out' Index for Sunday morning, December 3rd – exactly a week into the reputed ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The Jerusalem Post reports that Palestinians in Gaza fired a Kassam rocket into the western Negev early Sunday morning, with the projectile hitting near Kibbutz Kfar Aza. There were no injuries or damage in the attack. This was the seventh such attack since the so-called truce came into effect. The army has been instructed not to respond to any of the rocket strikes.

The security cabinet was to hold a debate Sunday on whether to expand the Gaza Strip cease-fire to the West Bank, with senior security officials warning that such a move could lead to a spike in terrorism.

To back their argument that continued IDF activity was necessary in the West Bank, senior IDF sources in the Central Command said that last week alone Palestinians tried smuggling some 10 pipe bombs out of Nablus through the Hawara Checkpoint, south of the city.

"The terror here never stops and only grows," one officer said of the West Bank. "The only way to keep it under control is by retaining our presence in the territory."

There were 287 terror attacks including shootings, Kassam rocket attacks, stabbings and roadside bombs in November, in comparison to 172 in October, 115 in September and 151 in August, according to statistics released by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies.

MSNBC gives a chilling close-up view of continuing war preparations deep within southern Gaza:

Abu Abdullah scoops yet another spoonful of white powder from a fancy dinner plate into a yellow and black steel tube. The white stuff looks like flour, but it's actually a mixture of store-bought nitrate fertilizer with a dash of ordinary sugar—the 30-year-old Palestinian militant's latest recipe for homemade high explosives. He has almost finished assembling another rocket at a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hideout in Gaza's Khan Younis refugee camp.

Rocketmaker Abu Abdullah with the Moqawana 2 in a hideout
in the Khan Younis refugee camp (Photo: Michael Hastings)

Elsewhere, in Gaza:

"A hitherto unknown group calling itself the Just Swords of Islam issued a warning to Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip over the weekend that they must wear the hijab or face being targeted by the group’s members.

The group said its followers last week threw acid at the face of a young woman who was dressed “immodestly” in the center of Gaza City. They also destroyed a car belonging to a young man who was playing his radio tape too loudly.

In a related story, Haaretz notes that police arrested a left-wing activist during a rally held in Tel Aviv Saturday night against what protesters dubbed Israel's "siege" of Gaza.

There were no reports of the Tel Aviv rally's marchers protesting the extremists' violence against the Gazan civilians, or military preparations against Israeli civilians, as noted in the MSNBC report.

SOUND UP: TELETYPE (under v/o)

This has been a 'Peace Breaking Out' Index update for Sunday morning, December 3rd.

SFX: DING!

Egyptian Sinai manhunt after Palestinian terror cell (UPDATED)

From Israel's Channel 2 TV news, 20:00 Saturday night:

Egyptian security forces are in what is being described as an intensive manhunt after a Palestinian terror cell from Gaza that is planning to carry out an attack on Israeli tourists in the Sinai Peninsula.

Israeli security officials are urging Israeli tourists to leave Sinai immediately.

The Egyptians have been pursuing the cell, which reportedly numbers at least four to five members, for the last five days.

More information is here, here and here.

Israeli ambulances and crews at Taba border crossing with Egypt;
victims of Sinai terror bombing lined up on grass. Egypt forbade
Israeli rescue teams access to bombed hotel. (Photo: Guardian)

(Considering Egypt's stunning lack of success in foiling weapons, drugs, prostitute and white slaving into Gaza, and from there into Israel, I'd say the MDA ambulances should start lining up at the Taba border crossing point near Eilat, ASAP. Why the glum outlook? Because of this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this.)

When ATM's talk, your money walks: Israeli researchers

The following reminds me of a quick, clever, scene in actor-comedian Steve Martin's L.A. Story:

Two lines of people, dressed for a night on the town inch towards a bank ATM: standing in one line are those withdrawing cash; the second, polite, also well-dressed muggers who greet their prey at the point of transaction, like cheery actor/waiters saying, "Hi! I'm Todd! I'll be your mugger this evening!"

A group of researchers at Algorithmic Research (ARX), an Israeli security firm, published a paper two weeks ago describing a very serious flaw inherent in most ATMs. Apparently, between the time that you input your PIN and the time that the machine spits out your cash, a dataset containing your PIN and account number is encrypted and decrypted a few times while being routed along the banking network -- and somewhere along that point, it's conceivable that those numbers could be intercepted.

Terror busters mix motorcycles and swagger

Jerusalem - What looms suddenly in your rearview mirror and is past you in a streak on the stone slip of a darkened street is crime-fighting Israeli-style: two men, dressed in black, bent low on a dark motorcycle, the one behind with his automatic rifle angled off his back, the bike darting quick as a bat.

A moment later up ahead, near the Ben Yehuda shopping area in the center of Jerusalem, a man is up against a wall, dressed in clothes that resemble what a Hasidic Jew would wear, but in a faintly raffish way that doesn't quite square with the sober probity of Hasidism. The backseat rider from the motorcycle is frisking him; the driver, still atop his bike, is reaching for the man's identification.

The man is eventually let go but not before he is closely questioned. He has just had his first, and he hopes his last, brush with the motorcycle unit of Yasam, an elite police unit.

Read more.