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