From the Weekend Jpost:

Good article on what the now-dominant Turkish AKP is about and how it well affect Turkish-Israeli relations.

Informative piece on the IDF and ambulance emergency services in the West Bank.

Electioneering has begun here with the potential Labor leaders (Mitzna, Ramon, and Ben-Eliezer) claiming that they won't be willing to join a unity government with Likud. Don't place any bets on that if you ask me.

One popular Islamic radical site is accusing another of being a front for the CIA. The latter claims that they are being harassed for selling cut-rate Islamic videos and other things..

Israel will be holding elections in February (report)

The Amnesty International report that accuses the IDF of war crimes in Jenin understates the number of Israeli civilian casualties during March 2002 - the month which preceded Operation Defensive Shield and included daily bombings of Israeli civilians by Palestinians. Amnesty says there were 40, the real number is at least 96 (report)

Update: The report on the Amnesty website currently gives a casualty figure of 80

The IDF has trained American soldiers for urban combat (report). What does that say about Sherard Cowper-Coles and others who suggest that the IDF is reckless and imply that other armies would do a better job at protecting civilians?

The IDF chief of staff relieved from duty an officer who was deemed to have violated rules of engagement in an incident where a Palestinian teen was killed. Additionally the IDF has investigated 35 cases of accused looting by soldiers this year and convicted 11 (report).

The current toll from the bombing at a mall in Kfar Saba is 2 dead and 2 seriously injured (report). The Islamikaze apparently blew himself up prematurely because a security guard was nearby.

Channel 2 said that there are many "specific warnings" right now. Last night there were a lot of soldiers out on Emek Refaim - the main street in my neighborhood.

A car bomb in Ashdod caused no injuries (report).

From Army Radio's Last Word this morning:

Avri: The Amnesty report, I must say, didn't make my morning. Even if I ignor all the regular Amnesty flaws ... like, say: removal from context, and uh, "removal from context" we said already, what else?

Uri: Lies, slander ...

Avri: "Lies, one-sided testimony from the Palestinians only, falsified ?, and a worldview that ... again it's "removal from context", but not looking at ...

Uri: ... Accusations of crimes that they didn't do there ... but beneath the banner of a human rights organization with all the prestige of Amnesty and all of the usual ?? like Zahava Gal-on and Peace Now are already calling not to appoint Mofaz to Defense Minister... Beautiful, hitch a ride - this time on the backs of the IDF and on the back of Mofaz - because the sacred Amnesty put out a report...

Avri: "Amnesty's not sacred, but what you're doing now is exactly the same automatic ritual the leftists do, as you are noting.....you're doing the mirror-image ... because dismissing the report is also ..... As soon as you say "there were no crimes" you give a stamp of approval of the crimes that were in fact.. and it's clear that there were crimes ... here's an example from today - small, not connected, but nonetheless: the charavot from the Mukata ... The commander who judged the soldiers for a charge of looting - he himself divided loot from Mukata to his officers ...

Uri: What are you talking about? You're not making distinctions among crimes ....

Avri: Looting is a war crime ... looting is a serious war crime ... not just a war crime but a serious one ...

Uri: There exist [categories of] misdemeanours, felonies, crimes, war crimes ... I don't think Amnesty is talking about that type of thing [ie. looting from Mukata]... When Amnesty talks about "war crimes" they have other things in mind ..

Avri: They're talking about stories where despite my desire to say "No it can't be.... Our IDF is always ethical... Your testimonies are all false", when I hear about parents who are sitting with a seriously ill child, for example over several days, and in the interim there are negotiations between the Red Cross and the IDF about admitting an ambulance and the IDF doesn't admit the ambulance and the child dies.... then I can say "OK, it's their fault, they brought it on themselves..." on the other hand I say: maybe, among all the other actions that were appropriate, or were unintentional, or in the middle of warfare they brought it on themselves, it's plausible that under that umbrella, problematic people concealed actions that constituted war crimes... And you can't just put it all in a package and say nothing at all happened - you have to investigate each case....

Uri: If Amnesty were to say ".....in the course of IDF operation in Jenin, there also occurred problematic incidents, also crimes, and even on certain occasions actions that enter the definition of 'war crimes' " - then maybe ... But they don't say it that way... they stamp the entire operation in Jenin, and the IDF, and you, and me as war criminals...

Avri: What I say is that when Amnesty comes with their good intentions to correct etc. they do bad. ...As soon as they put us all in the same package and say we're all war criminals, and [describe] the IDF as the biggest ??? ever, they do the reverse, because immediately the opposition .... exactly like Peres yesterday defended Sharon on the BBC, as if he was speaking about some guy from the Mapai... it won't work if they do it that way...

Uri: The other side works that way ... you think that Amnesty is organization of righteous people for whom all that interests them is only human rights, but you have to understand that within these organizations, there's a "recurring spirit", there's people from the European "progressive left" as it's called ....

Avri: .. and there are many good people, for whom human rights is the candle by their feet and the pillow by their heads, morning and evening ... there's both types....

Uri: But when they release a caustic report like this one on what happened in Jenin - for which we have more or less testimony [of our own] ... There are other human rights organizations - that I don't fall to the ground and worship the dust of their feet - that say different things.. so it's possible to be skeptical also if it's Amnesty and not just say "Wow how guilty we are and how much bad are we doing to them". I remind you that 13 soldiers died in Jenin - and several more a few days earlier - just because we didn't do what we maybe needed to do: to say "if you don't come out, then we start shelling" .... and there were armed people there and our soldiers went in and ...

Avri: You're using a single "merit" - if you can call it that of course - in order to say "all of the sins never were". And that's not the situation... You have to look at the details of the situation and not general statements like that. True that in one circumstance we sacrificed 13 soldiers ... it's plausible that in a different circumstance different things happened. I'm just saying that in each instance it's necessary to investigate ..

Uri: Why does this get me so upset? Because I hear these responses - not just from some pro-Palestinian spokesman from the Arab League or something..... I'm talking about MKs [from] Zionist [parties] like Zahava Gal-On, like Peace Now: Important institutions which I value according to their worth - that's the way to say what I think of them ... . how they jump immediately ..automatically... Don't appoint him Defense Minister .. ....