Lots of interesting things are going on over here, news-wise, but your favorite snarkist is neck-deep in finals over here in the holy land and I just don't have time to report on it. But, however, even so, and although...I do find this particular Haaretz article to be important based simply on how it makes me feel inside. It is one of several articles in the Israeli press of late that has speculated on whether there will be a summer war with Lebanon and whether Israel's military is ready for such a war.
The piece says, in part:
Hezbollah tries not to carry out openly military activities in the border area, and in all of south Lebanon for that matter, but reports of heightened activities have recently spiked. A former intelligence officer told Haaretz that lately he and other Galilee farmers have seen plainclothes Hezbollah personnel traveling along the border and photographing Israeli positions.
They are sometimes accompanied by individuals who do not appear to be Lebanese, as well as interpreters, who appear to be Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers and who have by now integrated into every command level in Hezbollah.
Several questions detract from the sheer unpleasantness this extract suggests: How do you know they're Hezbollah if they are in plainclothes? How do individuals appear to not be Lebanese? How do people appear to be interpreters? And finally, how do people appear to be Iranian Revolutionary Guards? If these questions could please be answered to my satisfaction, I could continue on with my goosebump fest, thankyouverymuch.
The world has known suspected for many years that Israel has nuclear weapons, but Israel's "ambiguous" policy toward announcing that fact means they will never confirm or deny this fact suspicion. But as Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Haaretz, and others are reporting today, another nail has just been hammered into ambiguity's coffin.
Writer Sasha Polakaw-Suransky broke the story wide open yesterday when he finally announced the results of his extensive research into Israel's nuclear activities. Basically what happened is he discovered documents that strongly suggest that Israel offered to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa in 1975. The problem with the airtightness of the case is that the signature of Shimon Peres, current Israeli president and former defense minister, is on a secrecy agreement with South Africa, which was signed four days after a meeting between Peres and the South African defense minister. In the minutes of the meeting, typed and preserved by South Africa, nuclear weapons exchanges were discussed. So naturally, Peres is spinning the story by saying, correctly, that his signature is not on any document suggesting Israel has nuclear weapons or plans to proliferate them.
Polakaw-Suransky says about this, "he is speaking as a politician and someone predictably weasling his way out of a situation."
Yossi Melman, Israeli journalist, jumps on board the denial train and says that if Israel does currently have nukes, it didn't obtain them until 1979 and therefore couldn't have sold them to SA in 1975 even if they wanted to. He did however confirm that Israel traded tritium to SA in exchange for uranium.
In the above interview on Al Jazeera, the interviewer says to Melman, "Israel is not really in a position to cast dispersions on other peoples' nuclear ambitions. For instance, Iran."
Melman has that look on his face your kids get when you know they're doing something they're not supposed to do and you ask them what they're doing anyway and they respond, "Nooooooothiiiiing." You can tell he's thinking goddammit I should have known he was going to say that. So he takes a few moments to stutter and responds, "Well, that's not the same case. Israel has never admitted that it has nuclear weapons. It has never threatened to use nuclear weapons."
Wait. Am I...isn't that exactly the same case? Has Iran admitted it has nuclear weapons? Did I miss that announcement?
There are two main points of newsworthiness about this story. The first is obviously the evidence pointing toward Israel having nukes. The second is Israel's clear cooperation with Apartheid-era South Africa, which is unseemly and certainly doesn't help the image of today's Israel since its critics are constantly comparing Israel's policies toward Arabs to apartheid. However, as usual, only the Israeli press included the word "apartheid" in headlines about the event. Which is typical. Jewish guilt or whatever. I don't know.
I think it's time for a recap of this whole attempted Times Square bombing thing. The quick run-down goes like this: at first, nobody knew who did it, probably an amateur they thought, since the explosive device was made of fireworks and stuff. Also, this blog called Revolution Muslim had made veiled threats against the creators of South Park for including Mohammed, dressed in a bear suit, in their last episode. And the Viacom offices are in Times Square. Then the police apparently realized it was this guy Faisal Shahzad, below:
But they didn't want to make an arrest yet so they put him under surveillance and put him on the no fly list. He ditched his surveillance and was able to board a flight to Dubai, despite the no fly list. But upon a final manifest check, the airline was like, "Mmmmm, this guy isn't supposed to be on here. Let's call whoever we're supposed to call." Video of that whole process below:
PS, my fav part of this video: It's not like you just pick up the phone and call the guest house at the terror training camp and say, "Hello, was Mr. Shahzad there recently?"
Then the police came and took Shahzad away. They had him in custody and claimed he was singing like a bird, which didn't seem too plausible to me, but later there were stories on the news about how Pakistani officials had taken his family in Pakistan into custody, and I was like, oh I see. See in Pakistan they don't have pesky human rights laws and stuff.
So Shahzad apparently admitted he was part of the Pakistani Taliban and it was under their guidance that he planted the bomb. Which failed, I don't know if I mentioned that. Yeah, the bomb just didn't go off. It failed.
Anyway, meanwhile, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, created a youtube channel seemingly for the sole purpose of uploading two youtube videos praising Shahzad's attempt and promising further attacks on U.S. soil. Oh, and he also wanted to mention that he's not dead, as was previously thought.
That video is here. For some reason I'm not able to embed it, but here's a screenshot:
It's really worth watching. Seriously, it's like a trailer for an action film. Drama! Action! Suspense! Subtitles!
All this happened a week ago and then yesterday, I guess after they followed up on the leads Shahzad and his family gave them, the U.S. government announced it was sure the Pakistani Taliban was responsible for the failed Times Square bombing attempt.
Unmanned drones just went to town in Waziristan. Which is here, on Pakistan's Northern border with Afghanistan.
And by "went to town" I mean they shot two missiles and killed ten people. There was also a similar unmanned drone attack in the same region earlier in the week, according to the above article, but I could find no specific information about that. I don't know yet who was killed in this drone attack and how involved they were in the Times Square thing, but rest assured I will lean on my sources until I get that information. Who are my sources, you ask? I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.
So let's review: in the span of a week's time, U.S. officials evacuated Times Square, neutralized a bomb, tracked down the bomber, arrested him, had his family ten thousand miles away arrested, convinced him to tell all, followed up on that, and then bombed the people who helped him make and plant the bomb.
Situation handled.
Doesn't this whole thing read like an action movie treatment?
So apparently the ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokul volcano will reach Israel by tonight.
How is "Eyjafjallajokul" even a word? You could put together any sequence of 15 letters and it would be equally as recognizable and easy to read (and by that I mean not at all) as "Eyjafjallajokul." Like, why not Ashjayecloudyajouyomommafnson?
Hanyway, my point is that things are windy and dusty over here and I don't like it one bit.
Remember back when everyone was mad at Netanyahu? That was because just as Joe Biden was in Israel trying to get peace talks started, Israel announced it was going to build a whole bunch of new settlement housing in East Jerusalem, in a neighborhood called Ramat Shlomo.
As part of the newest round of proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Israel annouced yesterday that it would not build the approved Ramat Shlomo neighborhood for at least two years. There, are you happy now?
Israel had pledged not to build in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of East Jerusalem for two years and that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vowed that he would work against incitement of any sort.
Just two days after resuming peace talks with Israel, the Palestinian Authority has reported to the United States what it termed the first violation of negotiation terms, a senior Palestinian official said Monday.
Yasser Abed Rabbo said the construction of 14 housing units for Jewish settlers in an East Jerusalem neighbourhood, as reported by the Israeli Peace Now pressure group, violated the terms of new talks.
About the first round of talks, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said:
Erekat said that during their meeting, Abbas gave Mitchell a letter outlining the Palestinian Authority's position on proximity talks and the issues it wants to discuss. Abbas would head the Palestinian negotiating team himself, Erekat said, adding that the Palestinians view the talks as aimed at "The end of the occupation and creation of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel along the 1967 borders."
And Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak echoed his sentiments at a separate event:
"Without an agreement, we will be subject to international isolation, and we will suffer a fate similar to that of Belfast or Bosnia, or a gradual transition from a paradigm of two states for two peoples to one of one state for two peoples, and some people will try to label us as similar to South Africa. That's why we must act," Barak said. If both sides are willing to make brave decisions, he said, "it will be possible to get to direct negotiations and a breakthrough toward an agreement."
So it looks like Barak is super duper ready to make a two-state solution with the Palestinians, but clearly the rest of the government is not on board. Ah, well, no matter. I'm sure Netanyahu and Lieberman and all those guys will enjoy being a Jewish minority in, oh, 20 years.
Yesterday, the Jewish Agency for Israel officially announced its new strategy for recruiting jews to live in Israel, which basically consists of spending more money on PR. The official press release quoted in the Ynet article doesn't say this, of course, but I was at an event sponsored by Masa on Tuesday night, which preceded the official announcement in New York by only a few hours. The Masa event, held in Jerusalem, was designed to strengthen the jewish disaspora's connection with Israel and included speeches by chairman of the Jewish Agency Natan Shransky, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Basically, Sharansky said the major question in approving the new strategy was, "Why should Israel have to pay for spoiled American kids to come visit?" I'm paraphrasing, clearly. But thankfully, Sharansky says, Netanyahu approved funding for this purpose.
The plan calls for building Jewish identity of Jews around the world and in Israel by forging a strong connection to Israel, Jewish heritage and people. The plan also introduces recommendations for new initiatives of social activism in Israel, and calls for directly engaging young Israelis on issues of Jewish identity.
I have uploaded Sharansky's speech and included it below, but I have had some internet problems which prevent me from uploading Netanyahu's speech so far. But stay tuned, it's coming.
PS I apologize for the terrible video quality here, I don't know what was up with my camera. Maybe it decided on its own that it would be best for my readers not to see Sharansky's face in focus.
By the way, the book I've been talking about forever is finally out. It is an anthology about the occupation, with stories from some amazing writers, including me. There are forewords by Cindy Sheehan and Amira Hass.
So buy it here and savor that righteous indignation to your liberal heart's content.
