This is about the only article I've seen that takes a serious look at the EU investigative report that failed to find any evidence of PA funds reaching terrorists.

The EU should put the report up on the web.

Anne Bayefsky records the stance of Human Rights Watch at the 2001 UN Durban conference:

As we arrived at our meeting the chief Durban representative of Human Rights Watch, advocacy director Reed Brody, publicly announced that as a representative of a Jewish group I was unwelcome and could not attend. The views of a Jewish organization, he explained, would not be objective and the decision on how to vote had to be taken in our absence. Not a single one of the other international NGOs objected.

Update: Reed Brody responds here, but doeson't contradict Bayefsky's basic points:

....In Durban, and its year-long run-up, we campaigned to ensure that the WCAR would be about more than the Middle East. ..... A great achievement of the WCAR process was the unprecedented mobilization of victims of racism from communities around the world, such as the so-called untouchables of South Asia, the Roma of Europe, and blacks in Latin America.

With over 3,000 victims groups present in the pre-WCAR forum of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International had limited ability to moderate the language of chapters for the NGO declaration. Each chapter was drafted by the affected community, including not only Palestinians but also such groups as Tibetans, Kurds, and Dalits. Many of these chapters were factually supported, powerful documents, but others were not. Our refusal to participate in the voting on the statement and its chapters, and our failed attempt to cast the document as a collection of the "voices of the victims" rather than as a text endorsed by all, was intended precisely to avoid giving a stamp of approval to all parts of the document.

Bayefsky, however, claims that we "said nothing" as the final NGO statement was put together on September 2, 2001, and lent legitimacy to its inflammatory statements about Israel. In fact, as the Post (and virtually every other newspaper in the world) reported on September 3, "The New York-based Human Rights Watch condemned the resolution." The Post quoted me as saying, "Israel has committed serious crimes against the Palestinian people, but it is simply not accurate to use the word genocide and wrong to equate Zionism with racism."

Prior to the declaration's adoption I personally spent hours trying to persuade Arab and Palestinian colleagues to amend this and other language. ....

Brody doesn't address Bayefsky's claim that he announced that her Jewish group was "not objective" and could not participate in the NGO meeting. So we can regard the account as confirmed. And Brody's condemnation of the resolution was made afterwards and not during the proceedings as Brody tries to suggest:

The declaration, adopted by a majority of the 3,000 delegates from 44 regions to the World Conference's Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) forum -- a broad-based summit of groups from around the world involved in human rights issues -- shocked Jewish participants, and many walked out of the meeting.
Some other international human rights groups who were part of the NGO forum, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, moved to distance themselves from the declaration.
...
Reed Brody, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said: "Israel has committed serious crimes against Palestinian people but it is simply not accurate to use the word genocide and to equate Zionism with racism ... it is now a matter of damage control."

I'm thinking of giving the reader comments a hiatus.

It won't surprise anyone that the EU's conclusion that they haven't been funding Palestinian terrorist activities looks like a farcical whitewash from here.

All reports that I've seen are quite vague as to the actual ponderings of the commission, but they seem to have worked hard to find doubts that they can give the PA the benefit of; commissioner Emma Udwin can't even feign comfort with its efforts:

We are not soft on terrorism. We have checked out every allegation that has been brought to our attention. We have not been able to establish a direct link between our money and terrorism. We welcome the fact that the parliamentarians wanted to look at it. There isn't any form of financial assistance that is 100 percent risk-free. That is as true in the Palestinian territories as it is in Cornwall

These days it seems that PA apologists are increasingly impervious to rational arguments; to the small number of sensible lefties out there, I would emphasize how it's totally insane to compare the situation here to familiar situations in Europe ("Cornwall"?). A reasonable starting point assumes that everything is different.

Separately: Sounds like Jpost editor Bret Stephens is looking for a new job. Perhaps he finds that the news here has gotten too repetitive, or maybe he doesn't like working for a funny-shaped paper that needs to make the text of its daily Wall Street Journal page really skinny.

From a rather standard Aviv Lavie article about a film that interviews Israelis and Palestinians whose children have been killed in terror attacks and in IDF operations:

Arbel says that the main difference between the Israelis and the Palestinians was their attitude toward the deceased: "I was astonished to see that in most of the Palestinian homes there is a photograph of the child's body, sometimes with the bullet in the head. Can you imagine framing a picture of your child who has been shot?"

Seems to me that this reflects both martyr-reverence and a desire to keep the anger and drive for revenge alive.

Dave at IsraellyCool takes a look at some new attempts at self-justification from the International Solidarity Movement. Be amazed both at Dave's sharp wit and the ISM's nauseating tolerance for Palestinian terrorism.

Blogging lull will continue for a bit more.

Here's a good article on where things stand with the Gaza withdrawal proposal. Interestingly, some Americans think that they can turn Gaza into an island of democracy on Iraq/Afghanistan model.

According to Haaretz, the 2 Palestinian "policemen" were killed during the foiled attack at the Erez checkpoint because they had refused to let the Islamizake's jeep through.

If this account is correct, it's probably the first instance of real confrontation between the PA and the terrorists since Oslo. It's almost certainly the only instance since Oslo broke down.

Daniel Zamir's trio is appearing tonight with guest pianist Omri Mor at the "Jazz Blues Tel Aviv" festival.

I saw Omri Mor play with Omer Avital a while back and he was quite amazing, though more stragiht-ahead than Zamir.

7 killed and lots injured. The bus bombed was the #14 northbound, next to Bell Park. They're calling it Rehavia, though really it's where Rehavia ends and the German Colony and Baka begin. It's also not far from downtown, and Arabs (presumably from the Old City) often frequent the park.

I didn't listen to the radio much. I just need to know where it happened and how bad it was (and since it was rush hour, whether the bus was headed towards or away from my neighborhood). I don't need to hear the reports from the scene, the hypotheses about how the bomber got through, or the broadsides at the Hague proceedings.

I'm off to work now, so I'll have to hear the details on the radio while I commute.

I still hear sirens.

I heard sirens about 5 minutes ago and tried to ignor them.

Haaretz says that a bus was bombed in Rehavia; it was probably further south (ie. closer to the German Colony).

Here's yet another article on how the European press tends to frame just about every event here in anti-Israeli terms, and is willing to believe just about any anti-Israeli accusation.

The days are numbered, however, for this kind of idiotarianism; or so you might think if you read Jeff Jarvis' reports on Emerging Technology in media.

The planned path of the security fence has changed again (report).

This German woman is nostalgic about the 80s - her look back then was down-to-earth: Adidas, jeans, sweatshirt, and " 'Arafat-scarf' in black/white".

Zeev Schiff says that the IDF would in fact leave Gaza after the removal of the settlements, but that they would return to respond to rocket fire etc. It's not clear whether the IDF would cease to man the border with Egypt, and there are lots of problems regarding how Gaza could possibly be self-sufficient. It's also likely that the anticipation of evacuation will lead to increased terrorism, so as to create the impression of "exit under fire".

Schiff thinks that Sharon should have done this when Abu Mazen was first installed. Though I would note that if he had done so it would not have been construed as a "unilateral move", but rather as one of those pointless "confidence-building measures".

The media today has a lot of discussion about how the Gaza settlements would be totally levelled when they are abandoned. MK Ahmed Tibi called for them to be left behind for occupation by Palestinians in refugee camps - but this is simply posturing, as the Palestinians have long opposed any attempts to improve conditions of the "refugees" to the extent that they might be willing to stay where they are.

Maariv print edition reports that the Italian newspaper Il Foglio printed graphic images of the recent bombing of the Jerusalem #19 bus that were taken from the Israeli Foreign Ministry website. Maariv says that the images stirred up controversy (and criticism from the Chief Rabbi of Rome), but also stimulated unprecedented sympathy and some openness to the notion of the security fence.

Il Foglio looks like a right-leaning paper, and hosts a couple of blogs which link to the English blogosphere.

Apparently in Sweden they're also talking about bans on hijab, but without the cosmetic step of banning other religious "symbols" as well.

Israel would never restrict hijab, but it's interesting to think about how the Europeans would react if someone here suggested it.

Correction: It's Norway, not Sweden.

I'd appreciate it if commenters would choose nicknames that at least sound like names of people.

I agree with Imshin's equivocal thoughts regarding the removal of settlements from Gaza.

People should note that removal of the settlements is not the same thing as IDF withdrawal.

Thurs night I drove thru the Aza/Ha-Ari intersection and so no indication whatsoever of the bombing that happened in the AM about a block away, though I heard that there were flowers placed at the site.

I've noticed that leftists tend to be very "visual" people - if we didn't "clean up" the bombings so quickly, they might not have the gall to challenge the security fence in the Hague.

This blog now has an RSS feed.

This AM was something out of Spring 2002. A friend of T.'s called just as I was on my way out to work, and then we read about the bombing at Haaretz. I left for work as usual and tried to think of how to avoid the consequent traffic (I couldn't, since my commute crosses Derech Aza where the bus was bombed).

The latest news is 10 people killed.

I lived in an apt. very close to today's bombing from '96-'99. One morning In 1998 I went into a shop around Aza/Arlozorov and a woman told me that Pres. Clinton's motorcade had passed by 1 hr. earlier (and that he waved).

People abroad don't seem to notice much of a difference between the Camp David, Taba, and Geneva plans. In the same way they don't notice the difference between the situation in early 2002 (when the PA controlled most of the West Bank and these things were happening about 3-4 times a week) and the way they are now.

This summary of the findings of the Hutton inquiry is striking to me in that the inquiry actually attempted to make an objective evaluation of the interpretive and editorial mechanisms of a major news organization. I thought that noone aimed at objectivity anymore, but just at portrayal of the different "narratives".

Now if only some well-respected non-partisan body would do the same thing to the reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian situation from Reuters, NYTimes, BBC, Guardian etc.

I'm still here The New York Times ran a report a while ago suggesting that the new security fence (combined with the IDF policy of raids against "militants") was preventing Palestinian suicide attacks against Israeli civilians.

Apparently the possibility that the fence is actually a good thing was disturbing to the editors at the International Herald Tribune, so when they ran the NYT report, they added a nonsensical paragraph postulating that the terrorists had declared an unofficial cease-fire. Turns out that the IHT regularly does this sort of this thing with Israel-related news(article)

I'm back from a work-related trip to the US. In addition to being pretty busy, I've been continuing the semi-detachment from current events that I enjoyed while I was abroad. But the weekend papers will snap me out of that, no doubt.

I'd like to offer a special welcome to the BBC trainees on Day 1 of their "Investigative Research on the Net" course (who came here to see a "Weblog").

Good luck in your work with the BBC, and I hope you'll see how much there is to learn from the blogosphere.

Don't infer anytihing from the fact that they put this site next to a Nazi bulletin board and an anarchist mailing list. I'm just an average Israeli - I write about the news and my personal experiences.

And please follow the Beebs' advice: don't look for dates in chatrooms or expect to find drugs online.

More: Note that the BBC tells its trainees that Indymedia is a "specialist site" for "finding news".

From an interview with Sheikh Hashem Abd al-Rahman Mahajana, mayor of the Israel-Arab village Um-al-Fahm. (and member of the Islamic Movement party):

What do you think about the idea of annexing Umm al-Fahm to the Palestinian Authority?

"Absolutely not. Ninety-three percent of the city's residents are against that, and I am one of them. This is our home, we are citizens like everyone else, and we have it good here."

What's so good here for you? What about all the complaints of persecution, oppression and discrimination?

"It's all true, as you know. Yet our situation here is still far better than it would be if we were in an Arab state. I admit it. I also say it in talks abroad. It's a fact. That doesn't mean that there is nothing to improve. There's plenty."

Tony Judt's next article According to this Haaretz report, senior Likud officials rallied around Ariel Sharon at a party convention last night - even those such as Limor Livnat who have been critical of Sharon recently. The report describes Sharon's confrontation with a vocal faction led by Moshe Feiglin, and gives passing mention to an eccentric "vote contractor" named Uzi Cohen, who made remarks promoting "transfer" of the Palestinian population.

Of course, Chris McGreal in The Guardian portrays "Central Committee member" Cohen as a major Sharon opponent at the forefront of some kind of grass-roots movement. Is calling McGreal a "lying scum" too harsh?

But Al-Jazeera trumps The Guardian by making Cohen into a Knesset member and "influential figure" in Likud.

Update: Ali J. changed its headline (it now says "Israeli official" instead of "Israeli MP"), but the article still says that a proposal on "ethnic cleansing" was "tabled" etc.

Swedish media apparently lionized Gustav Fridolin's attempt to interfere with the building of the security fence, though a center-right Swedish newspaper was more critical.

Fridolin's sojourn with the ISM and Anarchists Against the Fence was apparently paid for by an educational grant from the Swedish gov't. Fridolin defended the grant saying that it was supposed to be a fact-finding trip in which he would meet with both Arabs and Israelis who agree with his non-factual preconceived views.

Fridolin incorrectly claims that the IDF used live ammunition to clear his mob, and also asserts that Rachel Corrie was deliberately murdered in order to test the extent of the international outcry. Fridolin also wants Sweden to suspend trade agreements with Israel and encourage Swedes to boycott Israeli goods.

It's quite fascinating to see the ISM and its friends getting funding for its unarmed but violent activities under the pretext of educational programs (ie. this one, Echoing Green, and Adam Shapiro's encouraging kids to exploit and then abandon heavily-subsidized "Jewish heritage" trips). It's probably a natural step, given the youth of most of their volunteers.

The mainstream media often treats them as a peace group (though not always), so it's important to vote for the International Solidarity Movement at the LGF "Idiotarian of the Year" poll.

"More than 100" ISMers and Israeli anarchists tried to obstruct construction of the security fence near a village called Bodros by blocking bulldozers and subsequently throwing stones at police and soldiers. The IDF dispersed them using tear gas and rubber bullets, and arrested 8 including the 20-yr. old Swedish parliament member Gustav Fridolin (Jpost, Haaretz).

Bodros is right on the Green Line - not that these know-nothings screaming about the "Apartheid Wall" would care one way or the other. Between 8 and 19 of the mob were lightly injured, including at least one from a rubber bullet.

According to Ynet, Fridolin claims to have been hit by a Border policemen before he was arrested.

Update: The more up-to-date reports put the size of the crowd at around 500.

A good article on recent changes in the planned path of the security fence (including the 'before' and 'after' considerations) here.

Qalqilya will no longer be fenced in from both sides; and the fence will now separate Baka al-Garbiyeh from Baka al-Sharkiya, rather than including the latter on the Israeli side (Look forward to the inevitable articles portraying the hardships created by the fence partitioning the adjacent villages).

I doubt that these changes make any impact at all on the fence's shrill and strident critics, but perhaps readers will find examples to the contrary.

How did today's Tel Aviv bombers get around the security fence? We will be hearing about it, no doubt.

The real indication of the success of the fence will be if and when the terrorist groups start trying to shift their tactics away from the Islamikaze bombings and towards things like firing things over the fence or attacking settlements.

The latest in evil spam seems to be mail messages that just contain a lot of random words. The spammers figure this will mess up Bayesian spam filters and force providers to stop using them.

Soon I will write about Sharon's Herzliya speech.

Regarding the rumors of a suicide bomber in New York: of course it's impossible to know if there's anything to the rumor (and let's hope not); and New York is so big that anyone's chance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time are small.

Nonetheless from a purely selfish perspective - here in Israel it's possible to keep relatively safe by avoiding crowds and premises that don't have security guards (assuming you and your family have the luxury of not needing to ride public buses). But you can't avoid crowds in Manhattan.

Repeating lies often enough seems to make them a commonplace. Christopher Hitchens:

Meanwhile, leading Israeli conservatives speak openly about a “transfer” or mass deportation of the remaining Arab population, and boast that this is no more than what they began doing in 1947/1948.

"leading Israeli conservatives"?? As I've often noted, you'll have to go out to the Kahanists or the far-right of the settlement movement to find "speaking" like that.

Someone please tell Hitchens, Judt et. al that their failure to provide names and hard facts when they conduct their malicious smears is leading people to conclude that they are the zealots and demagogues.

In fairness, Hitchens makes many sensible points that conflict with the leftist conventional wisdom on the situation (not that I generally agree with him); it's when he gets to discussing Sharon and the current political dynamic that H. loses good sense.

ISM leaders Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro have received funding from an organization called Echoing Green. Echoing Green was set up by several hi-tech VC types and backs leftwing causes that it sees as "start-ups" - Shapiro and Arraf are two of the "visionaries" they've chosen to supply with cash. Their project is described as a training program for Palestinian youth - quite likely it will support the activities of the ISM's Palestinian coordinators like Osama Qashoo or the al-Titi family.

The other projects funded by EG seem to be leftish and unusual but nothing quite comparable to the ISM (though a description of another project claims that Arabs can't lease housing on Israeli state property - which is a lie).

As an Israeli I'm not pleased about "charitable efforts" aiding groups who cooperate with terrorists and ultimately aim to wipe my country off the map.

Blogrunner is a nice blog search engine.

Tony Judt responds to critics here. He moderates his early "dissolve Israel" remarks a bit, but still smugly tosses off stuff like this:

I am not the first person to remark upon the distressing state of Israeli public life, increasingly dominated by zealots and demagogues; the subject is commonplace in Israeli writing, as Amos Elon notes. It is mainly Israel's American defenders who seem blithely unaware of this state of affairs. Lenin used to describe Bolshevism's foreign admirers—fellow-traveling progressives who resolutely heard and saw no ill in their promised land—as "useful idiots."

Judt has not visited here (his observations are so way off and anyway he would have mentioned it). He can't be reading much of the Israeli media either (even Haaretz) if he thinks that "public life is increasingly dominated by zealots and demagogues". So where are these ideas (and venom) coming from?

Afterthought: Could well be that Judt would apply the term "zealot" to me (or Gil or Imshin) and only Beilin, Burg etc. are "within the pale" for him. At some British blogs there seems to be an unarguable sensibility under which expressing support for Sharon is regarded as akin to supporting Mugabe.

A few more worthwhile Geneva articles:Gordon Singer Rubin

I'm still not sure what to make of Ehud Olmert's statement in favor of unilateral withdrawal.

This article says that the statement is a "trial balloon" from the Sharon camp - which would be really shocking, and also suggest that the idea was hatched at the same time as the decision to go ahead with the security fence. Obviously, withdrawing without a peace agreement is a form of surrender - noone should pretend otherwise. And it would increase the PA's determination to fight for everything else that they are demanding (ie. Jerusalem, settling millions of Palestinians into pre-1967 Israel, whatever's after that), while in no way reducing international pressure.

The weekend Yediot had an article called "Korbanot Hagader" ("casualties of the fence") - a play on "Korbanot ha-shalom" ("casualties of the peace") which was the term applied by Oslo supporters to the casualties of "first-generation" suicide bombings. The article by Tsadok Yehezkeli is both informative and melodramatic in that it contrasts the initial successes of the fence with the hardships endured by Palestinians in Jayyous, Jabara, and a third village.

Yehezkeli tries to describe the situation from the first-person vantage point of those affected (including the standard baseless bit about how they think malicious land confiscation and "transfer" are in the offing), asserting (mistakenly) that this aspect is lost in the "sterile" language of Israeli discussion of the fence. I actually want more "sterile" information ie. how many people are really going to be substantially affected (the article quotes an untenably large estimate from B'tselem) and what possible alternatives exist.

I will try to write more from this article later, though real-life may well end up taking precedence.

More on 'Geneva' Another right-on evaluation from Yossi Klein Halevi:

The Israeli initiators of the Geneva Accord are guilty of multiple outrages. They've summoned a campaign of international pressure against their own democratic government, hampering its diplomatic maneuverability. They've undermined the legitimacy of the Sharon government while strengthening the legitimacy of Yasser Arafat's. They've lied to the public about the accord's supposed renunciation of the right of return, when in fact the accord reaffirms it. They've negotiated away Israel's most basic assets, not least its right to defend itself, and gotten vague Palestinian promises in return. And, hardly surprising, they allowed the Geneva signing ceremony to be overtaken by a blame-Israel atmosphere without offering any defense in response.

But perhaps their greatest damage is domestic. In the past three years, Israeli society has managed two extraordinary achievements. The first is to withstand a planned, systematic terror campaign whose purpose was to break our will and slowly erode our viability. Shortly after the outbreak of the Terror War in September 2000, Ehud Barak warned that, in a contest of wills between two societies, the loser will be the one who blinks first. Now, with Geneva, a part of Israeli society has blinked.

No less serious is Geneva's erosion of Israel's second great achievement: the marginalization of both the ideological Right and Left and the end of the no-win debate between them. The combined effects of the first and second intifadas on Israeli consciousness was to convince the majority that both Greater Israel and Peace Now were delusions. And so, arguably for the first time since the 1967 Six Day War, most Israelis were no longer viewing the territories through an ideological prism of wishful thinking but facing reality, however grimly, on its own terms.

This article says that Arafat's last minute decision to ambigously smile on the Geneva ceremony was the result of pressure from Egypt.

Haaretz writer Sara Leibovich-Dar levelled some criticisms at Jpost. Jpost editor Bret Stephens responds that Leibovich-Dar is a tendentious interviewer and a plagiarist.

I variously read Jpost, Haaretz, and Yediot - all of them have good and bad writers (at Haaretz: Ari Shavit, Zeev Schiff, Amos Harel, and Amir Oren are the best ones). In 2002, Jpost and Haaretz both interviewed me about my blog, and Jpost was the more professional of the two. The Haaretz article has a lot of sloppy misquotes, including an anecdote told by Sgt. Stryker that was attributed to me. The Haaretz interviewer was also quite envious of my ability to say whatever I want on my blog.

On the off chance that you were thinking of going to see the excellent musicians (like Omri Mor, Daniel Sarid, and Daniel Zamir's Ad Matai) at the Tel Aviv"Fringe Jazz Festival" , you might take a look at the home page of the Communist Party-sponsored arts space that's hosting it and have second thoughts.

Palestinian 'Geneva' negotiator Jamal Zakot on why Palestinians shouldn't fear that the plan would eliminate unlimited "right of return" to pre-1967 Israel for descendents of refugees from 1948:

"The document does not promise a full and collective return for millions of Palestinians, but it also does not cede this right. On the contrary: the proposed time frame for the solution of the refugee problem is five years, while the time frame for the Israeli retreat from the Palestinian lands [sic], evacuation of settlements and completion of installing Palestinian sovereignty on its lands according to the maps - which are more important than the texts - is only three years."

So Zakot is saying that the PA will first get everything that it wants in the West Bank/Gaza, so it will be able hold out and stay maximalist. And don't think that they wouldn't.

Arutz-7 translates the above from PA daily Al Hayat al Jadida. Perhaps Ribbity will take a closer look.

In the course of a discussion about an assertion by Norwegian Television that Israel's security fence is creating "apartheid", Bjorn Staerk enunciates the real issue regarding "antisemitism" among European media and intelligentsia:

We don't have to call it anti-semitism or Jew-hatred. Those words are so intertwined with modern history that their defining qualities have been pushed aside. But "irrational fear of and attribution of malicious intent to the only country in the world that is dominantly Jewish, and Jewish influences in other countries" covers it. It highlights the sinister part without strawman-friendly diversions like whether this is hate, or whether Hitler would have approved.

I've been thinking along similar lines for a while. We just need a good name for this phenomenon - eg. where Tony Judt will wave away physical and verbal attacks on Jews by Europeans as "misguided", while castigating (with comparisons to Pontius Pilate) Israeli leftists who have become (understandably) disillusioned.

Standard liberal gestures - ie. trying to "understand", suspending judgement, trying to "build bridges" - just seem to be absent. Although the Guardian seems to have started changing in the past week or two.

The Swiss just wouldn't risk offending the Palestinians (report):

It had been agreed beforehand that a message from Arafat would not be read aloud at the ceremony - but at the last moment the PA delegation demanded and threatened, and the Swiss hosts gave in. The message from Arafat, considered to be the father of modern-day terrorism, stated, "While Israel continues to build a Berlin Wall, we hold an olive branch.

So apparently in Geneva they blamed Israel for everything, cursed at the fence, and called Sharon a "fascist". And no criticism at all for the Palis.

The one-sidedness is partly because that's how many of these people actually think. But it's also because any criticism of Arafat or the Palis would "offend" the Palestinian delegation. Castigating Israel and giving Arafat a free ride is part of trying to drum up Palestinian support for the Geneva enterprise.

Similarly, if some peace plan gets support from an Israeli gov't (whether Likud or Labor), Palestinian support for it is then likely to decrease. The thinking is: "if the Israelis are willing to accept it, then it's probably a trick and we should be demanding more".

Heard the Geneva affair (including some of the Carter speech) on Channel 2 news. I bet most of the people there never actually read the "accords", and have no recollection of the Camp David or Taba negotiations (except for Beilin & co. of course, who were present at them).

Carter apparently called repeatedly for "return" of refugees to the territories beyond what the "accords" call for. He obviously hasn't read the documents, which call for unlimited settling of refugees into the "territories" and an additional "limited" (but TBD) number of refugees to be settled in Israel proper.

More: This article describes how Carter and Arafat have a longstanding close relationship (via Kesher Talk). Carter is not disturbed by Arafat's support for Al-Aqsa Brigades etc.

I will eventually force myself to read the reports of the Geneva "signing". Most normal people would probably not be able to participate at this thing in an official capacity (eg. by making a speech) without somehow noting that it's basically meaningless.

But professional politicians (and ex-politicians) aren't normal people, and will largely ignor the fact that Beilin etc. have no mandate from the Israeli public, and that the hypocritical Palestinian delegates don't even represent themselves, let alone Arafat or the Palestinian public.

The real evidence of the shallowness of the sponsors (ie. Blair, Carter et. al. ) is that none of them will actually try to treat the Palestinians' ostensible (though mega-ambiguous) blessing of the Geneva document as readiness to make the single concession that it apparently requires of them - ie. giving up their demand that millions of descendents of refugees from the 1948 war be settled in Israel proper.

Still on the very local side of things: Jpost print edition has more info on the Templer cemetery in Jerusalem's German Colony neighborhood and Beilin's plan (ie. 'Geneva') to provide the PA with "access" (which is not defined within the Geneva document).

The area actually contains two burial grounds - the one belonging to the Templers has been unused for about 50 yrs; a second one belongs to an evangelical Christian movement, whose administrator expressed surprise that the PA had expressed any interest in the site. This confirms to me that the provision was a not-particularly-well-considered "tit-for-tat" in exchange for Israeli access/sovereignty of the large and centuries-old Jewish cemetery on Mt. Scopus.

Mazal Tov to Ribbity Frog + spouse on the addition of a new tadpole.

Apparently pandering to Arab and Muslim sentiments, BBC World Service Radio broadcast an all-Muslim panel discussion on whether Israel has a right to exist. The consensus of the panel was not surprising.

Norman Geras links to this this article on the situation. This article from Haaretz has similar sympathies. This other Haaretz article.

It's tiresome to fisk articles in the Independent and the Guardian because to me it seems that the loaded language and one-sided presentations in those publications should be obvious to everyone. But since this article has made such an impression on a sensible liberal blogger it seems like a good time to respond.

Guardian:

There are yellow steel gates in the barbed wire [at Jayyous] but they are closed. Farmers are busy making phone calls, some are going to see the Israeli military to demand that the gates be opened. Eventually, soldiers arrive. Harvesting is a family affair so the soldiers face a crowd of men, women and children. What they do is this. First they collect all their identity papers.

Then they call the people out one by one. Today they have decided that no male between the ages of 12 and 38 will be allowed on his land. Also, no woman will be allowed unless she is over 28 and married. So the majority of the farmers - men, women and teenagers - stand at the gate, the Israeli soldiers and the barrier between them and the harvest that is their sustenance and income for the coming year.

Two men set off to try and find a way of infiltrating their own land. The rest make their way back to the village hall. On the mayor's desk lie some 600 permits that appeared in the village this morning. They are issued by the Israeli authorities and made out to individual farmers. About half of them are in the names of people who can't use them: babies, infants, a couple of men who have been in Australia for 15 years. But that is not the point. The point is that the people know that if they use these permits they are implicitly accepting their terms: three months' access with no recognition of any rights to the land. They suspect that after three months Israel will start playing games with them. Permits like these were one of the mechanisms by which their parents and grandparents were dispossessed of their land in 1948. What should they do? Use the permits and try to salvage their crops and deal with the rest later? Boycott the permits and starve?

More lies from the Guardian

An Egyptian writer tours the West Bank for the Guardian:

The next day a Jewish Israeli woman gives me a copy of the military order on which the permits are based. It names the West Bank land now trapped between the barrier and Israel's borders the "Seam Zone". It states that the people who have the right to be in the Seam Zone without permits are Israelis or anyone who can come to Israel under the Law of Return. That is, any Jewish person from anywhere in the world. But in this district alone, 11,550 Palestinians have their homes in the Seam Zone. "It is Nuremberg all over again," she says.

That whole paragraph is baldfaced fiction - nothing unusual for the Guardian, I know. But it's also disturbingly provocative and inflammatory.

More later.

More:

To clarify:

- the assertion that the seam zone is "Jews only" is simply bunk

- the wacky-left and mainstream British press have also stated that the villagers were told to get permits or face expulsion. Those reports don't describe how the orders were supposedly promulgated (or offer an Israeli response). I haven't found anything vaguely similar in the Israeli press (and there should have been something).

- I have read about permits being required for crossing the fence

Don't know if I'll have any more info today, but I'll try (the Nuremberg bit is obviously obscene but apparently goes over well in Europe).

More:

It's another instance of the "Jenin Effect" (ie. Palestinian rumors becoming international news):

The Palestinians of Jubara were alarmed when Israeli soldiers began posting notices on telephone poles and at checkpoints around their small West Bank village.

....

The notices told of an unprecedented new order: everyone must apply for a special permit to remain in Jubara -- the village has about 300 residents. The notices did not specifically mention expulsion, but Palestinian officials and villagers said they understand this to be the implied threat.

Suffice to say that this "implied threat" is either Pali propaganda or subconscious projection (or both). The IDF is trying to prevent non-locals from crossing the fence easily - an unpleasant consequence of maintaining a quasi-open border with Arafatistan.

I'm a bit weary of the whole 'Geneva' thing, but: A recent Jpost article mentioned that under 'Geneva' the Palestinians would be provided with "access" to the Templar (German Protestant) cemetery, which is right in the middle of my neighborhood. This was apparently a spur-of-the-moment concession demanded in exchange for Israeli access to the old Jewish cemetery on Mount Scopus.

Update: More background on the cemetery here. Apparently they're the Templers, not the Templars.

The text of the "Geneva accords" were mailed to all Israelis a week or so ago (though I was in the US, and T. didn't keep the brochure for me). The mailing was funded by gambling website operator (and Beilin associate) Avi Shaked, together with the Geneva-based Center for Humanitarian Dialogue (report)

"What's your solution then?" While some are still saying that "we just have to believe in the possiblity of peace", Yossi Klein Halevi is a realist:

In a week when the Sharon government announced negotiations with the new Palestinian government for a second hudna, or cease-fire, and when the text of the "Geneva Accord" appeared as a pamphlet with our morning newspapers, it is useful to remind ourselves what we've learned about the conflict over this last bitter decade. And that is that the Oslo-era notion of a comprehensive peace needs to be wiped from our lexicon.

Instead, we should conceive not of resolving the conflict but of managing its intensity. A hudna isn't merely a means to an end but - at least for the foreseeable future, and possibly for this generation - the end itself.

There are several compelling reasons why a comprehensive peace is now unattainable. The first is the near-total absence, among mainstream Palestinians and the Arab world generally, of the notion that Jewish sovereignty over any part of this land is legitimate.

....

Many of us who initially supported Oslo assumed that a reciprocal realization had occurred among Palestinians. In fact, no such transformation of Palestinian consciousness occurred. The opposite: One of Oslo's many ironies is that, by entrusting the education of a generation of Palestinians to Arafat's pathological regime, the Palestinian people are far less emotionally and ideologically ready for peace than they were before the Oslo process began.

...

At the same time, we need to recognize the fluidity of this moment and stay open to new possibilities. In balancing the contradictory insights of politics and faith, our challenge is one of timing: how to avoid premature hope that could once again lead us to disastrous political initiatives, while not missing sudden openings for change.

I hope to resume blogging next week.

Last week I was in the US at an often boring wi-fi enabled conference. I can imagine how people living generallly peaceful surroundings could catch a glimpse of LGF and see it as obsessive or even intolerant.

Interesting: a roundtable discusssion on "The New World Order" featuring the very insightful Mark Lilla as well as Tony "Dissolve Israel" Judt - sponsored by batty-sounding graduate programs at the U. of Illinois.

Lilla's article "The End Of Politics" offers an explanation of the depressing European trends embodied by Judt's clumsily argued and clearly agenda-driven article in the NY Review of Books (excellent responses to Judt by Bret Stephens and Victor David Hansen have been heavily blogged already).

The question that I would like to put to Judt: "Suppose that your 'binational state' idea were actually attempted and just made matters worse. Would you then support international 'encouragement' to get Jewish Israelis to emigrate?" Like many leftists, Judt pretends that the Israeli gov't contemplates transfer of its Arab population and gets outraged; but his answer to my question could only be 'yes'.

T. and I had brunch on Friday morning at Cafe Hillel. It was a bit less crowded and somewhat more secured than before it was blown up. The less crowded part made it more pleasant to be there. It doesn't strike me as a big deal to visit a place that was recently Islamikaze-d.

This article by Australian parliamentarian Michael Danby provides good context to Mahathir's OIC speech. Mahathir is strongly and pragmatically anti-Western as well as anti-Jewish, but realizes the counterproductivity of terrorism and seeks (or seeked) to develop Islamic strength through economic and military power.

This might mean that Thomas Friedman's "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" should join Shimon Peres' "The New Middle East" as one of the most quaintly naive books of the 90s.

Like most Israelis I'm appalled by the reports that supposedly 59% of Europeans think that we are the leading threat to world peace.

The actual data of the poll (which also asked about the Iraq situation) are supposed to be released tomorrow. My admittedly conspiratorial idea: the results are deliberately engineered by European Commission bureaucrats to promote the "Geneva initiative". The "initiative" has little support among the Israeli public as I've described previously, but from the EU perspective the poll result could be a way to pressure Israel and indicate that they don't respect or recognize our reasons for skepticism.

I imagine my European readers are likely to jump in here and say that the 59% figure is actually plausible. But I haven't seen a good description of what these polled people are likely to be thinking.

Update: Miranda from Germany responds that I'm way off, and that the EU doesn't support the 'Geneva Initiative'.

A possible reason that the James Reynalds at the BBC and Justin Huggler at the Independent seem to just regurgigate the Palestinian versions of events: they're too busy looking for oddball Israelis to mock.

European parliamentarian Francois Zimeray is leading a group of 150 MEPs on some sort of "interparliamentary forum". Today they met with PM Sharon; their meeting w/ Abu Ala was cancelled but it's not clear why.

Interesting article on the IAF's internal response to the events in Rafah.

There's a politician who wants to rename Jerusalem's Aza (== "gaza") street for some reason.(report). Beats me why that bothers him more than "Derech Beit-lehem" and "Derech Hebron".

Sometimes it strikes me as strange when I see road signs that say "Bethlehem 10 km" etc. (and there are not a small number around).

There was something fishy about Beilin-Abed Rabbo's "solution to the refugees issue" as reported in the initial descriptions of the "plan".

Now it's clearer what's actually going on: At Taba, the Palis strenously attempted to force their interpretation of UN General Assembly resolution 194 as the basis for dealing with the refugees of 1948 and their descendents (despite the non-binding nature of the resolution and other issues). As described in this important article, Beilin essentially consented by presenting some draft language which included the text "The realization of the aspirations of the Palestinian people, as recognized in this agreement, .... the comprehensive and just solution for the Palestinian refugees, based on UN General Assembly Resolution 194, providing for their return". In a laughable attempt at consideration for Israeli interests, Beilin also included language that stated that the "return" will preserve the Jewish identity of Israel and that the influx of refugees would be limited to a specific but unspecified number of returnees. (See here for Beilin's response to Ari Shavit's article)

According to this report, (by Akiva "it's all our fault" Eldar), the still-secret "Geneva documents" address the refugee issue along the same lines, but with some significant differences.

First, since the notion of a Palestinian "right of return" to pre-67 Israel is anathema to the Israeli public (as is the explicit reference to UNGAR 194), the new documents don't mention them, but instead they (or rather their Palestinian interpretation) are incorporated into Article 7:

Second, the stipulations about retaining the Jewish character of Israel and capping the number of "returnees" are still present. Thus far, the contradictions of the Taba proposal are still present. But a single sentence seems to resolve everything in Israel's direction :

.

On the face of it, that means that there is no mandated "return" of refugees whatsoever, while fully erasing Article 7. But if so, why is Article 7 there at all? Clearly Israel is expected to accept some non-trivial number of "refugees".

Note: The above is in the middle of being rewritten.

Backseat Drivers blog wasn't impressed with a play performed in Dublin by Tel Aviv's Cameri Theater ("a cast of fourteen Israeli, Palestinian-Israeli and Ethiopian-Israeli actors")

On Army Radio this AM, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was doing his best to dismiss the whole "Geneva discussions" business: it's "entirely virtual", the Israelis involved are not elected representatives etc. He's correct of course, but that won't matter at all to the Europeans, Kofi Annan etc.

Oslo architect Ron Pundak was asked how these "agreements" managed to attain consent from the Palis when the Clinton plan did not. Pundak's answer was that the Clinton plan was 1) too general on issues like Jerusalem 2) had Israel receiving 3% of territory for which it offered nothing in return. Pundak's response is preposterous: if such were really the case, Arafat would have had no reason to walk away from Camp David. Moreover Clinton would never had permitted him to do so. And it's well known that the Pali list of objections to the Clinton plan included foremost what the Palis call the "right of return" for descendents of 1948 refugees.

And Pundak was evasive when interviewer Udi Segal tried to understand the details in the "agreements" regarding the refugee issue. As I wrote yesterday, it sounds like their solution is that Israel should accept an unspeciifed number of descendents of 1948 refugees into its pre-1967 borders, without it being called the "right of return". I'm certain that if Palestinian officials describe these discussions to their own people, they will insist that the "right of return" has been preserved.

When (or if) at sometime in the future there is a "real" attempt at a permanent solution agreement, it will involve a certain amount of ambivalence and risk-taking. The fact that Ron Pundak ecstatically describes the "agreements" as "a classic win/win situation" and seems to harbor no doubts whatsoever about Pali intentions makes the whole thing even more questionable.

More: In the US there is apparently a law called the "Logan Act" which specifically outlaws the type of thing that Beilin and co. have done here.

Ultraleftists Yossi Beilin and co. have been play-negotiating again with a Palestinian team in Amman, and - as they did in real negotiations at Taba - they're "offering" outlandish concessions that would never receive a mandate from the Israeli public (report). These include settling an unspecified number of residents of refugee camps into pre-1967 Israel, and relinquishing border control to an international force, no Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. For years Beilin has been saying that Israel must accept in principle what the Palestinians call the "right of return" in order to strike an agreement; now he's saying that we should accept it only in practice and not in principle.

The Pali team say they "will pledge to prevent terror and incitement and disarm all militias" ("and we really really mean it this time") and agree that their state will be demilitarized (yeah right). I don't see that the Palis anywhere agree that this package would "end the conflict", rather than (as in the past) merely being the stepping stone to their next set of demands

Beilin and co. have provided a major propaganda coup for the Palis and have complicated any attempts to establish stability or agreements through other mechanisms. Good going Yossi.

More: Ynet adds (Hebrew link) that the 4-day discussions were quite tempestuous and that last-minute Swiss intervention and an Israeli threat to walk out rescued the discussions. Doesn't sound like a considered piece of statecraft if you ask me.

Oh, and the "signing" is going to be on the anniversary of the Rabin assassination in the presence of luminaries including Bill Clinton.

Adrian says he heard an apparent bombing in Haifa.

Shoom is an interesting world-music type group based here in Jerusalem.

Avant-garde saxophonist Daniel Zamir has a new ensemble called "Ad Matai" that will be appearing at a jazz festival in Mizpe Ramon in late October.

The pop group Hamadregot will have a new CD out soon.

The pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement pretends to be a "peace group" and often gets away with it. Read the group's Orwellian response to Islamic Jihad's bombing of a Haifa restaurant that killed 19 yesterday. Sort through the various self-serving ISM garbage to get to the punchline paragraph:

ISM is unequivocally opposed to the killing of all innocent civilians, and sees the perpetuation of violence as a direct result of the Israel's military occupation of Palestinian land.....

Note to Independent columnist Johann Hari and others: the second half of that sentence unequivocally renders the first half meaningless. Does the ISM somehow object to the bombing or its perpetrators? "no, the bombing is a direct consequence of Israeli policies" and you can't object to or complain about natural consequences. The ISM has no complaints about Islamic Jihad (and Hamas) or objections to being buddies with them. If anyone has any doubts on the matter, see a previous Huwaida Arraf rant. The ISM continues:

...Earlier this afternoon two Palestinians, one a 9-year-old Mohammed Daraghmeh al-Nouri, were shot and killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank town of Tulkarem.

"two Palestinians" ... hmmm... one of them was Sarhan Sarhan, who shot 5 Israeli civilians dead (including a mother who was reading to her 2 children) at Kibbutz Metzer in November 2002 (report). Strange for the ISM to be mourning someone like him right after they claim that they're unequivocally opposed to the killing of civilians. The death of the 9-yr. old in crossfire, tragic if true, has not been confirmed by non-Palestinian sources.

This very informative article describes the impact of a recently-completed segment of the security fence near Umm al Fahm.

Israel has approved plans to build 530 houses in the ultraorthodox Betar Illit settlement and a 3 dozen more houses in 2 other settlements near the Green Liine.

This is a big deal only because such building had been frozen for the duration of the "performance-based roadmap" and prior to it. Not that you would have known that based on comments from Palestinians and the global media who had made so much noise about the hilltop trailer "outposts".

The imove isn't wise - my guess is that there is high demand in Betar Illit because housing there is so cheap and the ultraorthodox are currently more cashstrapped than ever.

People sometimes write letters and address them to "God" without any additional address. Postal clerks around the world send these to Jerusalem, and the "dead letter office" here inserts them in the cracks of the Western Wall (article).

Walked by Cafe Hillel today. They're well along into the rebuilding, and the place will look pretty much the same as it did before the bombing.

Thanks Stefan! I really would like to be writing more these days....

A comment at LGF notes that two of the MEPs who were present at (and apparently applauding) Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti's trial appearance were Luisa Morgantini and Grazia Mascia of the Italian Rifondazione Comunista party.

I think that this piece by Amir Oren (about the letter from 27 IAF Reserve pilots who have signed a letter refusing to participate in the targeted killings of Jihad-oriented folk) is meant to be sarcastic. This older piece - scroll down to "Reducing the Risk" gives some background to the IDF's decision to demolish a house in Hebron rather than attempt to arrest Hamas man Ahmed Bader who was hiding inside.

Jpost publisher Bret Stephens was one of a dozen Israeli and Palestinian journalists flown on a luxurious British-gov't sponsored peace junket. Tony Blair spoke banalities. The Guardianistas were shallow know-it-alls. The Palestinians dodged a lot of questions but were on occasions sincere or interesting. (article).

Haaretz really really wants you to read this speech that publisher Hanoch Marmari made on the topic of "embedded journalism" to the International Press Institute.

Johann Hari of The Independent kindly responds to my remarks below:

You have, I fear, willfully misread my article. When paraphrasing what I say, you ignore the rather massive if: "IF you don't know about the terrible history of anti-semitism, THEN..." the events of 1948 seem unjustifiable. Of course, all educated people DO know this history. I am a strong defender of the right of the Israeli people to self-determination and safety; I support the creation of a Palestinian state precisely because Israelis will never be safe so long as they are denying Palestinians their safety and freedom.

I have repeatedly argued against English anti-Semitism in print, and taken a hell of a lot of flak for it; I have Jewish relatives and, as a gay man, would have been killed by the Nazis (and, yes, Hamas) myself; and as for having "no evidence" for my criticisms of Israel, I spent over a month on the Occupied Territories this summer. Your accusation of anti-Semitism is disturbing, libellous and extremely upsetting. I hope that on reflection, you will retract it, not least because we cannot expose real anti-Semites (and believe me, there are many) when such foolish accusations are thrown around against transparently non-racist people.

Yours sincerely,

Johann Hari.

The full paragraph in contention:

Of course, if you don't know about the Naqba, Palestinian anger at Israel looks simply like a disembodied, crazy loathing. And if you don't know about the terrible history of anti-Semitism, the creation of the state of Israel looks like unjustifiable wickedness.

You write: "When paraphrasing what I say, you ignore the rather massive if: "IF you don't know about the terrible history of anti-semitism, THEN..." the events of 1948 seem unjustifiable. Of course, all educated people DO know this history." But you don't address your use of the term "wickedness" - the simple implication of what you wrote is that creation of Israel is a kind of sui generis wickedness that only anti-Semitism climaxing in the sui generis Holocaust can justify.

Moreover, you believe that the Naqba explains (and in a partial sense legitimizes) the implacable Palestinian antipathy to Israel. But the term Naqba signifies the events of 1948 in a national-mythical sense, and the relationship between the Naqba and the actual creation of Israel (and flight of refugees) resembles the relationship between the "Jenin Massacre" and the events of Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. So it's really the mythologization of the events that causes the implacability of Palestinian anger. Perhaps your actual view is that it's this Palestinian view of the Naqba that makes the creation of Israel look like unjustifiable wickedness, and not their unawareness of the history of anti-semitism.

Elsewhere in the article you write that in "their desperation to feel safe" the Levantine Jews committed "an atrocity against the Palestinians" - what is intended? Deir Yassin? The refugee problem as a whole? That the Mandate-period British and the Arabs (or the Turks for that matter) committed more frequent atrocities of their own does not justify what happened at Deir Yassin, but clearly reduces its significance as a historical event. If you'd like to discuss the specific events of 1947-49 (eg. UNSCOP declaration, ensuing riots etc.), I'd be pleased to do so - and I'd also be interested in hearing what similar conflicts you believe that the Levantine Jews should have used as their "role models".

I do recognize and appreciate that you are trying to give a just hearing to both sides of the current dispute (and I'm giving short shrift to other points that you make in the column). But this context makes the apparent proposition that Israel's right-to-exist somehow derives from the Holocaust all the more disturbing. There's not much daylight between that approach and the idea that the Palestinians are suffering because Europe dumped the Jewish problem on them. In the basic sense, Jewish national rights should be regarded as legitimate - though I think that in Europe this point is not regarded as at all obvious.

I do sincerely regret having made mention of the term anti-Semitism - both because it has been interpreted as an attack against you and because it detracts from the main issues that we are discussing. You will note that in my original message I stopped short of directly accusing anyone of anti-Semitism, and that my ponderings on that score also had much to do with the audience that you seem to be addressing as well some of the opinions expressed in the British Medical Journal. So perhaps to could modify the description of the "accusations" that I made.

Update: Johann Hari responds that the above is "thoughtful" and "well-argued" but that he disagrees.

Several blogs have praised columnist Johann Hari; they think that he seems to be a sane liberal despite his working for the Independent. But in an article titled How do we move beyond 1948? Hari writes:

And if you don't know about the terrible history of anti-Semitism, the creation of the state of Israel looks like unjustifiable wickedness.

"unjustifiable wickedness" ?! That Hari can just toss off a line like that is amazing - he actually thinks that he's being reasonable and conciliatory as he declares that from his perspective defending Israel's existence amounts to justifying the unjustifiable. His statement says more about him (and the circles that he moves in) that it does either about justice or about the situation of the region now or fifty years ago. He also writes an incredibly uncritical piece on the ISM.

(via comments at "Harry's Place"): a (similarly) depressing dialog from the British Medical Journal.

I'm not one to make accusations of anti-semitism, but it seems that there's not a small number of educated people in the UK who have a strong desire to believe the worst about Israel... and on no evidence at all or on the flimsiest of accusations.

More: I'm flattered but not convinced by Johann Hari's response in the comments section. I will post a reply of my own soon. At the moment I'd just note that in my original message I stopped short of directly accusing anyone of anti-Semitism, and that I regret having made mention of the term anti-Semitism - both because it has been interpreted as an attack against Hari and because it detracts from the discussion of what he has written in the columns that I mentioned.

Shai's surgery went fine and he's gone home. I don't know if the doctors gave him the piece of the suicide bomb that was lodged in his shoulder. When Norwegian TV interviewed him, the questions included "Will this change your life?", "Will you now move out of the country?" ("No" and "No").

"Do you have a message for the new Palestinian leader Abu Ala?". Don't know what Shai replied, but I think there's nothing to say to him because his policies will be determined primarily by the rigid Palestinian mythology and secondarily by Arafat.

Victims of terrorists receive a lot attention and sympathy (as do injured soldiers). Shai's friends were ribbing him about how he was being treated like a hero.

Arafat is supposedly talking about an wholly unilateral ceasefire (report). Anyone remember when Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire? I think it was shortly after the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement fell apart in 2000; the Palestinians dismissed it as a propaganda measure.

I was just talking on the phone with our friend Shai, who my wife Tova is visiting in the hospital. Suicide bombers pack nails and screws into their bombs to make them more deadly. On Tuesday night Shai was hit with two pieces of the "shrapnel": one went straight through his leg; the other broke his collarbone (?) and lodged near a major artery in his chest - making it dangerous and tricky to remove. And the boom of the blast has impaired his hearing. His surgery has been postponed as the doctors figure out the best way to remove the debris.

Shai is otherwise in OK shape and sounds like his regular self. Tova printed out the global "get well" wishes from the comments below, which he appreciated.

He wasn't reluctant to tell me details. He was sitting in the middle of the cafe with his back to the door when the Jihadi blew up, so he heard the boom and saw people opposite him panicking. When he was hit in the leg and shoulder he fell to the floor, and consciously avoided looking behind him. Someone shouted a people to stay down because there might be another bomb. After someone smashed a glass pane near the back of the restaurant (which was walled with glass on 2 sides), Shai managed to pull himself out with the help of his dinner companion. They distanced themselves from the restaurant (again consciously to avoid trauma) and then returned and got ensconced into an ambulance.

The governor of Oklahoma visited Shai in the hospital, and he was interviewed by a newspaper called "The New Mexican"[?].

A Norwegian TV network filmed and interviewed him for 20 minutes and intends to juxtapose him with a Palestinian terrorist. But why would they choose to focus on a mildly-wounded, not-so-traumatized unmarried well-off guy in his 30s? Why not describe the story of Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter who would have been married last night? Why not speak to their families? Wouldn't it make a better human interest story?

24 hrs. afterward

Sh. - one of my wife's old friends - was hurt by shrapnel in last night's bombing. Doctors say there is a screw lodged near a major artery, which requires removal via a delicate procedure. He's been moved to a different hospital and will be undergoing surgery tomorrow. Get better soon Sh.

Currently they're saying 4 dead and many injured. Our friends in the neighborhood all seem to be OK. Report in Haaretz, Jpost.

I'm signing off for the night.

Hamas are evil, but it's hard to think much differently about the people in the PA and abroad who demand that we just accept this and give the Palis more and more in the hopes that someday they won't dislike us anymore.

Right now I heard 2 dead. There's a security guard at the door of the cafe, so my guess is the guy blew himself up in the sidewalk cafe.

All of our friends are calling us to make sure we're OK.

Apparently it's on CNN. That's quick.

Radio says bombing at Cafe Hillel - just down the block from me. Sounds like lots of casualties.

Hillel is usually crowded even at night. It has a lot of tables set up in the alley next to it.

Lots of sirens now.

I'm in the Emek Refaim area of Jerusalem.

Nothing on the radio yet. But sirens from every direction.

Big bang outside 15 seconds ago.

Now a siren.

security fence in Jerusalem (report).

These days when I see on a website or hear on the radio that the IAF has hit a Hamas operative in Gaza, I'm never sure if there's been a new hit or if they're still talking about the last one.

Interesting article about

Huwaida Arraf is a co-founder of the group of pro-Palestinian volunteers called the International Solidarity Movement. From the ISM Central blog:

Huwaida Arraf today sent an email that can be said to constitute the ISM's official reaction to last Tuesday's bus bombing in Jerusalem.

Let's try to step inside her mind and see things "the ISM way" - if we dare:

Friends,

After the August 19 bus bombing in Jerusalem, the ISM received a number of emails asking if the ISM was going to make a statement and we received some of the usual, "why isn't the ISM riding Israeli busses?" comments. One email suggested that if we don't speak out against this bombing, we are "party to it".

These are good questions. The messages on the ISM mailing list agonize daily over Palestinian suffering (both real and otherwise) but made no mention at all of the Jerusalem bombing. The ISM's "actions" interfere with the IDF's operations against terrorists, which leaves the impression that the internationals tacitly support such actions. So I look forward to hear Arraf's responses to these questions even as she sneers at them.

Again our response is that we are working to stop all violence in the region, not by issuing statements, but by working to end the root cause of the violence against Israelis and Palestinians - the ongoing, brutal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and lives ......

Hmm. "Blaming it on The Occupation". But she's supposed to make a ritual condemnation first .. You know, like, "We condemn these attacks, but ..."

In the few short weeks after the hudna was announced on June 29, 2003, up until August 9, 10 days before the bus bombing in Jerusalem, the Israeli military killed 10 Palestinians, 5 of them children, wounded 348 Palestinians, 65 of them children, arrested 435 Palestinians, damaged or completely demolished/destroyed 211 Palestinian homes, and uprooted or destroyed over 10,050 Palestinian fruit and olive trees. This is not to mention the vehicles and businesses damaged and/or destroyed, the thousands of dunams of Palestinian land confiscated or isolated from its owners, the number of new settlement structures that were built, the bypass roads created, the Israeli military outposts erected, the continued work on the apartheid wall, the continued denial of access to Palestinians to their land, and the ongoing daily abuse at checkpoints

CBBTFTP = "Can''t be bothered to fisk that part....

We are not going to issue statements.

She said that already, but OK.

We stand against the killing of all civilians and are saddened for the families of the victims of that bus bombing.

If Arraf had said "We stand against the killing of civilians under all circumstances", I would understand her to be expressing an objection (and taking a moral stand) against the Islamikazes. But she's taking pains to say that she's not "making a statement", so I can only understand her to be saying that the ISM opposes killing civilians "in principle" - the same way that she's for peace on earth.

At the same time we're frustrated with the politics of governments and the complacency that is allowing this to continue. Without a check on the Israeli government and military, this will continue. There can be no hudna or "road map" without restraints put on the Israeli military and government.

I thought you just said that you guys weren't going to issue statements. To me this sure sounds like a statement to the effect that the ISM thinks that the suicide bombings should continue until "The Occupation" ends.

Zeev Schiff writes that there is consensus in the Israeli security establishment not to return to a "truce" that does not include direct Palestinian action against terrorist infrastructure (deja vu)

Additionally, the Shin-Bet (internal security) regards the latest actions of Gaza security head Mohammed Dahlan as a familiar public relations exercise, while the IDF sees some significance in his arresting arms dealers and taking action against Qassam missile launchings - though there have been no steps taken to dismantle weapons workshops or arrest suspected Islamikazes.

Well, one accomplishment of the hudna is that Hamas managed to improve the range of the Qassam missiles that they fire from Gaza. Previously they could only hit Sderot - now the thankfully inaccurate projectiles can reach Ashkelon (report)

New blog: ISM Central

Haaretz news flashes says: "IDF sources say military operation in West Bank cities will last three to four weeks".

If the IDF operations are serious enough, the PA might opt for another hudna afterward.

The late Ismail Abu Shanab answered called-in questions at IslamOnline in May.

I notice that MSNBC and Reuters are calling him a moderate. Israel says he was involved in the planning of Tuesday's bombing.