In the latest violence in Jenin, all 11 of the Palestinian victims were "militants", though you have to read the news carefully to figure that out. And there was a "nationalistic" shooting here in W. Jerusalem that injured 2 (report).

Mustafa Barghouti is another Palestinian spokesman who lies baldfacedly to the Western media and is never challenged. In this article on a Palestinian ambulance driver who tried to smuggle a suicide bomber's belt, Barghouti claims IDF fire has killed 21 doctors and nurses in ambulances. I'm certain this is BS (more later).

I saw Barghouti on the BBC after the Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Aug 2001. Then-PM Barak responded to the bombing by destroying some empty PA buildings (no casualties), and Barghouti went on and on about it was an unprecedented attack on a civilian area and it was only by a miracle that weren't large numbers of civilian casualties.

This is nice. DSP Group of Herzliya pays bonuses to employees on extended reserve duty (report)

Idiots Gush Shalom and Uri Avnery again demonstrate their insanity by taking out ads in weekend newspapers "warning" soldiers and civilians (like tent suppliers etc.) not to participate in mass transfers of Palestinians during the Iraq war. I think these people spend so much time in the imaginary world of Palestinian propaganda that they lose all sense of what's happening down their street.

Meanwhile Saddam is said to have moved scuds into Western Iraq. That probably means I should seal up my sealed room again.

Nick Denton has an image of a memo from the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information that threatens prosecution to journalists who "feed" the Israeli media (here).

Always the "fly-on-the-wall", Shimon Shiffer writes in today's Yediot Ahronot that the US has determined that it will not give Israel advance notice of the attack on Iraq. This is because Israeli officials keep leaking hints about when the war will begin eg. the head of military intelligence Aron Zeevi Farkash said it will be March 18.

Correction: Reading the actual article rather than the sensational headline, it seems that the US was merely "considering" reducing the advance notice that would be supplied to Israel so as to prepare Patriots etc. The Foreign Ministry has instructed all its officials (aside from the Prime, Foreign, and Defence Ministers and the National Spokesman) to refrain from commenting on the Iraq situation.