Monday 27 April 2009

Shin Bet: We've caught Bat Ayin axe terrorist - Haaretz - Israel News

Shin Bet: We've caught Bat Ayin axe terrorist - Haaretz - Israel News

Israeli guards repel Somali pirate attack on cruise ship - Haaretz - Israel News


Israeli guards repel Somali pirate attack on cruise ship



An Italian cruise ship with 1,500 people on board fended off a pirate attack far off the coast of Somalia when its Israeli private security forces exchanged fire with the bandits and drove them away, the commander said Sunday.
Cmdr. Ciro Pinto told Italian state radio that six men in a small white boat approached the Msc Melody and opened fire with automatic weapons Saturday night, but retreated after the Israeli security officers aboard
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Israeli guards repel Somali pirate attack on cruise ship - Haaretz - Israel News

EU president: Europe blind to scale of Iran threat - Haaretz - Israel News

EU president: Europe blind to scale of Iran threat


The European Union "underestimates the Iranian threat," according to Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the Union. At the conclusion of his visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Topolanek was strongly critical of European officials who are calling for a freeze on the upgrading of ties between the EU and Israel. In an interview with Haaretz, the outgoing Czech prime minister said that the "peace process should not be linked to the relations between the EU and Israel." At the same time, Topolanek proposed that Israel should end the razing of homes in East Jerusalem as a gesture of good will to the Palestinians.
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EU president: Europe blind to scale of Iran threat - Haaretz - Israel News

Israel Matzav: Orange you glad I didn't say Jaffa again?

Orange you glad I didn't say Jaffa again?

On Saturday night, I reported on Israeli-grown Jaffa oranges being handed out by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a rented crowd at a Tehran rally. Now, it turns out that the oranges may not have been from Israel after all.

Outlets at which the fruits were sold were shut down as Iranian officials hurried to assure the public that no fruit had been imported from Israel through legal channels.
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Israel Matzav: Orange you glad I didn't say Jaffa again?

Israel Matzav: 'Palestinian' flag inserted into Independence Day

'Palestinian' flag inserted into Independence Day flier

As many of you know, Tuesday night and Wednesday are Israel's 61st Independence Day. A flier that has been hung on walls in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Shaul includes a 'Palestinian' flag that was inserted behind a picture of David Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, reading the country's Declaration of Independence (pciture at top left). Of course, there were no 'Palestinians' in 1948. The flag was apparently inserted by a computer hacker who infiltrated the company that created the fliers. After attempting to fix the flier by putting plain white stickers over the flag (which did not stay on), Israel Television reported tonight that the flier will be reprinted.
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Israel Matzav: 'Palestinian' flag inserted into Independence Day flier

Israel Matzav: Iranian arms ship destroyed off Sudan

Iranian arms ship destroyed off Sudan

An Egyptian weekly reported on Sunday that an Iranian arms ship was destroyed off Sudan in the last two weeks. According to Israel Radio, the Egyptian magazine, Al-Usuba, was the publication that first broke the story of the destruction of the Iranian weapons convoy in Sudan in January. Like that convoy, this arms ship was headed for Gaza. And like the initial reports about that convoy, Al-Usuba reports that this weapons ship was destroyed by an Israeli or American fighter boat.
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Israel Matzav: Iranian arms ship destroyed off Sudan

Israel Matzav: Obama planning for Israeli strike on Iran ?

Obama planning for Israeli strike on Iran?

In Sunday's Washington Post, Jim Hoagland raises the issue that has to be foremost on everyone's minds.

So even after the Iran review is completed, don't expect it to deal forthrightly (or perhaps at all) with this core question: Can Obama's hopes for Middle East peace and fruitful negotiations with Iran survive an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear program, perhaps as early as the first half of 2010?
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Israel Matzav: Obama planning for Israeli strike on Iran?

Israel Matzav: Lieberman happy to talk to Syria, but without pre-conditions

Lieberman happy to talk to Syria, but without pre-conditions

After being lambasted in the media over the weekend for an interview with an Austrian newspaper in which he said that Syria is 'not a peace partner,' Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio this morning that he is happy to talk to Syria but without pre-conditions (this is not online yet, and I'm citing what I heard on the radio this morning).

Lieberman said that while he is happy to talk to Syria, there is not much point in doing so when the Syrians say "first agree to go back to the 1967 borders and then we will discuss everything else." Says Lieberman (correctly), "if we agree to go back to the 1967 borders, there is not much else to talk about." Lieberman also noted a continued Syrian threat that if Israel does not give it the Golan, it will take the Golan by force. The JPost article linked above, for example, quotes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as having told the Qatari newspaper al-Sharq:
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Israel Matzav: Lieberman happy to talk to Syria, but without pre-conditions

SNAPSHOTS OF ISRAEL


Y-Net, probably Israel's most popular website, has been running a competition for Best Snapshot of the Year, to be chosen for Independence Day (Tuesday evening). The ten finalists are up, here. They're fascinating, mostly for the way they're generally lacking in ideology and pathos (but not completely), none of them are esthetically pleasing, none are memorable, and taken together they indeed do give a pedestrian feeling of where we're at right now.

Quick annotations, from top left clockwise, for the Hebraically-challenged of you:

5 guys in their mid-50s who have been chums since they were in the paratroopers together, 35 years ago, arguing over a map while hiking in the desert.

Soldiers on a tour of Poland, dancing in an abandoned warehouse that used to be the synagogue in a small Polish town, and still has Hebrew on the walls. (OK, some pathos in this one).

A pier that no longer reaches the Sea of Galilee, which is drying up for lack of rain.

"We're all stuck in the mud" (in this case, at the Dead Sea).

A torn flag with the orange ribbon of the opponents of the disengagement from Gaza (2005). (OK, some political ideology in this one).

A fellow dressed (only?) in the flag shouting at the camera. The shouting is about as typically Israeli a gesture as any.

A group of folks standing under a "Save Gilad Shalit" poster, probably in Tel Aviv.

A play on the national colors (light blue and white): "No parking (in white); ... in the whole fucking city" (scrawled graffiti).

Two chaps, walking for their health, boiling their brains. Israelis are joined to their mobile phones at birth, never to be separated again.

The ice cream vendors always know which units will be having maneuvers when and where. I expect the central IDF planners ask them for plans each quarter. The pizza delivery folks, too.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

COPYCATTING THE ECONOMIST


According to Matt Pressman at Vanity Fair, Time and Newsweek wish to be like The Economist - and Pressmen explains convincingly why they won't. Never ever, not even after Hell freezes over, if you ask me.

I've been reading The Economist, off and on, since my father started bringing it home in, oh I suppose it was 1969. It's by far the most intelligent weekly magazine anywhere, and trumps the dailies and monthlies, too. It is broadminded, arrogant, well informed, snotty, cynical and irreverent of power, preachy, a joy to read and aggravating no end. It's a newspaper that spent its first century reporting on the world from its capital, London; since the sun never set on its beat, it never tired of watching it all. Reading The Economist is the best way I've ever found of keeping abreast of the human story - not all of it, of course, but more than anywhere else.

Yet I'd add some points Pressman misses. The paper's economic ideology: It's fiercely free-market, of course. The Economist really believes that free markets are the best for people; its editors are constantly on the lookout for what will be advantageous for as many people as possible. Whether you agree or not, reading them is a fine antidote to the silliness of capitalism being a conspiracy of the rich to exploit the poor, or the powerful to keep down the weak.

They're rationalist to a fault. They always try to uncover the facts and relate to them. They're as ideological as anyone, but do their best to keep their ideology tied to reality - a trick few others manage.

They have no bylines. We know the name of the editor in chief; if someone dies on the job they'll tell us about her, but of course she's off the staff by then. So there are no egos involved. Can you imagine?

Finally, their style is simply wonderful. Years ago when I was just beginning to write for consumption in English (my first written language as an adult was Hebrew), I purchased their style guide. Their basic admonition to their writers was to pitch their writing as if they were talking to an intelligent audience. Talking, mind you. Which means do without the hi-falutin words when there are simple ones, don't shy away from colloquialisms when they work best, but never forget your audience is intelligent. With one fell swoop they absolved me of the style used by, oh, 89% of academics.

Their positions on Israel can sometimes be outrageous; in 2002 I canceled my subscription they were so unacceptable.But eventually

I went back.

taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

The Torah Revolution: The Tapuah model

The Torah Revolution: The Tapuah model
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