Good article by Zeev Schiff on the ways in which Labor provided "checks and balances" in the unity coalition.

Apparently if there had been a narrow gov't previously, Arafat would have been expelled earlier this year.

Blog entries about Khirbat Yanun are here, here, and here.

Blogging should pick up again by Sunday.

On Army Radio they were joking about potential (though unlikely) "nightmare cabinets" that could arise now that the far-right is taking the place of Labor in the governing coalition: Avigdor Lieberman as Defence Minister, Effi Eitam as Information Minister, Benny Elon as Tourism Minister. Instead of a "separation fence", there could be a promenade from Hebron to Rosh Pina.

Uri Orbach said that it would be worth inviting these people into the cabinet just to show Labor supporters how foolish their party is for leaving the coalition.

Note that the above paragraphs consist of jokes. If people think the above is serious I will delete it.

Sunday's Islamikaze attack in Ariel was carried out by Hamas, not by Fatah as was originally thought.

After Fatah mistakenly announced that Muhammed Shakir had carried out Sunday bombing, the IDF found would-be-bomber Shakir and arrested him (Hebrew report).

The IDF effortlessly cleared out the 20 settlers from the Havot Gilad outpost in the middle of the night. The IDF blocked cellphone communications so that the settlers couldn't call their friends. On the radio this AM they interviewed someone ("Itai Zar"?) who had returned to Havot Gilad after dawn. He said that the settlers were only doing farming there now, but he essentially agreed that they were playing cat and mouse with the IDF.

The whole outpost-clearing thing will become a moot point if Labor leaves the gov't - as currently appears likely. Labor apparently thinks that being the weak second fiddle in the gov't is less desirable than their new direction: asserting their independence, letting the far-right take Labor's place in the gov't, and getting devastated in the next election.

I'm less focused on blogging right now because I'm looking to switch employers. There's a one or two recruiters that have been good to deal with, and some others that have not been.

Apparently following today's suicide bombing in Ariel, "between 5 and 7" settlers from Itamar went to a nearby olive grove and struck 5 Arabs and leftists with stones and rifle butts - giving them "deep cuts and bruises" according to the mayor of Yanoun, though Adam Shapiro's International Solidarity Movement claims that the settlers inflicted "possible" broken limbs on 2 American senior citizens - but I think they're full of it. (Haaretz, Jpost).

Not to defend the attackers from Itamar, when a group of Arabs gives an Israeli "deep cuts and bruises" it's not considered news. Ynet reports another incident where a settler says he was attacked by a group of Arabs - the IDF arrived and separated the two groups.

Also, the IDF exchanged fire with some terrorist types in Nablus, killing Ahmad Jawad Allah (Jihad), and Allah Muflah and Ayad al-Kutub (Tanzim) and wounding 2 soldiers (report). Palestinians say a 15-yr. old was killed by the IDF in Jenin, no other details.

There was a lot of additional "minor" violence today, just like most days: Israeli woman injured by a Molotov cocktail, 30 Kg bomb defused....

Another suicide bombing This time at a gas station in Ariel - half an hour ago (Haaretz, Jpost)

Update: Current info is 3 killed, 30 injured, 15 seriously. The attack was claimed by Fatah's Al-Aqsa Brigade, which some people have claimed was observing a halt to suicide operations.

A friend of mine just returned from the reserves. He and his aging co-reservists are in a tank unit, but this time around they did guard duty at Megiddo prison.

Megiddo is run by the IDF, but will eventually be transferred to the Prisons Authority - in the meantime it is lacking in infrastructure. The prisoners (all are there for terroriism and security offenses) stay in large tents with about 25 prisoners in each one. They make their own meals with food that's provided to them; they also build their own beds from bedframes and mattresses that they are given. The beds that they build resemble couches and have a Middle-Eastern look to them. The prisoners have satellite TV and watch al-Jazeera frequently.

Says my friend: seeing a little girl all dressed up to visit her father, and then having to pull the family away from him could almost make you into a leftist. But my friend puts sense before emotion and is definitely not a leftist.

This article describes how workers for foreign NGOs in Israel and the Palestinian areas relieve their pent-up stress by drinking and sleeping around. Workers for Oxfam UK and the like don't socialize with Israelis because they regard it as politically incorrect. An Australian woman says that leftist Israelis are no longer welcomed because they "taken on a more Israeli government-oriented rhetoric" - that is to say that they've changed their opinions.

Occasionally I see these types (or more often their vehicles) around. I'm inclined to talk to them but never really have. Once at Ben-Gurion airport someone was getting into a car labelled "UN TIPH" (which stands for Temporary International Presence in Hebron). As I walked by I said "Temporary?!?!". He said "Yeah, it's been 6[?] years already".

Reporter-centric An anonymous person forwarded me this email exchange with Reporters Without Frontiers about their report which ranked the Palestinian Authority's respect for press freedoms higher than those of Israel.

To: Reporters Without Frontiers

Just 1 or 2 questions: is it possible that some countries are nice to journalists (and receive a high score) because they are generally getting good press?

And that these same countries would be much more repressive if they were getting bad press, or in the middle of a war?

Or that these same countries leave media intimidation to freelance groups (eg. Lebanon and Hezbollah)?


From: RSF - Afrique [mailto:afrique@rsf.org]
Sent: Wed, October 23, 2002 6:10 PM
Subject: Re: World Press Freedom Survey
Hi,

I dont think countries like Benin or Senegal (more than 1000 people recently died in a ferry accident and a war is dividing the country for more than ten years) are getting a good press. And there is a real press freedom there. They have a good rank in our index.

On the other hand, when there is a war in a country of course journalists are often victims of it.

4 more families have returned to Khirbat Yanoun (report)

Please inform me of any European media reports on Shimon Peres' European Parliament speech ....

The NYC Transit Commissioner thinks/fears that suicide bombings will eventually take place in New York (report via Alis)

I agree with Gil and Imshin, that there is now a disturbing sense of fatigue and jadedness about these terror attacks. A tabloid paper today had the headline "Fiery Deathtrap" accompanied with pictures of the bus and victims. But how upset or outraged can you be when you've seen it so many times?

Some OK analysis pieces on the attack by Ze'ev Schiff and Gerald Steinberg.

RibbityFrog informed me that he is busy now with Wisdom and Eschatology, but hopes to blog more soon.

I was in the elevator with a co-worker who lives in the settlement of Beit Horon. I asked him if any of the teenagers in his locale had been camping out in Havat Gilad. He smiled as he said dismissively "No, our settlement is close to Jerusalem".

Much of what Palestinians think about Israelis comes from imagination and rumor-mongering. Today's Yediot Ahronot included a letter to the editor by a Palestinian from the town of Dura near Hebron. He wrote that we wanted to inform Israelis of what is happening in Hebron (here I paraphrase): "Every few days Israeli soldiers gather up a group of men and take them away, supposedly to be questioned. In fact they are taken into a settlement, where the soldiers force them to work for the settlers. They ask each man how old he his and force him to do an amount of building work according to his age. Then they free them without questioning."

Israeli companies are continuing layoffs, including some companies that are doing comparatively well (report)

Palestinian Satellite TV's English broadcast just announced that the IDF has circled Jenin anew - but without any mention whatsoever of today's bus bombing at Karkur that was launched from Jenin.

They just go on and on about how oppressed they are and talk like the IDF just acts at random.

A car bomb hit a bus north - word now is at least 7 dead and 30 injured (report).

Update: Now 12 dead + the 2 bombers.

Iyad Sawalhe of the Jenin branch of Islamic Jihad is almost certainly behind the bombing (report). Israel is in a bit of a bind - responding to the attack could displease the Iraq-minded Americans; not responding sends a message.

Ehud Yaari on Channel 2 said that there were something like 45 "specific warnings" in the past 2 weeks, and also numerous arrests and several foiled attacks. He also said that there is discussion among Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and some other groups to renew the intifada in a way that is arm's length from the PA. Fatah is largely quiet for now.

Near Nablus, mosques have been fancifully broadcasting that settlers killed a Palestinian, and this set off riots. Settlers harrassed olive harvesters and some settlers were arrested. (report). Oh and there was yet another terrorist infiltration attempt besides.

Settlers write to Jpost to describe their side of the olive-harvest/warning-shot mess (here).

The IDF is exiting Hebron today. The conventional wisdom is that this and other moves are connected to the imminent US attack on Iraq. But why exactly? These measures won't make Israel or the US more beloved to the Arab or Muslim world. Are they part of some conditions being imposed by Qatar (where the US is setting up bases) or other Arab/European allies? Maybe the US is planning for something to get a lot of attention on al-Jazeera.

Here's an article from the AP on Kfar Yanoun. It's written in that antiseptic wire service tone, but the allegations are more imaginative:

Groups of masked Jewish settlers have charged into the village, coming at night with dogs and horses, stealing sheep, hurling stones through windows and beating the men with fists and rifle butts, Palestinian residents said.

The Itamar settlement has a web page.

Palestinian Satellite TV just a minute ago claimed that (approximately) "the settlers are continuing their ethnic cleansing that they have been talking about for the past 6 months and have forced the entire 160-person population of El Yanun from their homes".

Now, they just said that today Israeli forces shelled a residential neighborhood in Khan Yunis, injuring 4; and that settlers from Neve Dekalim fired artillery randomly.

All of the above is fabricated, in case you didn't know. The 10 residents of Yanun who were harassed while harvesting olives have returned to their homes. The shelling, 6 months of ethnic cleansing threats, and artillery stuff is totally made up.

They had a British woman call in and talk about how horrible the Israelis are. Then she said something about how if there's a criminal hiding somewhere they should send in troops and go house-to-house "which is what any other country would do". This left the program's hosts speechless, since they couldn't say they agreed that Israel should actually attempt to apprehend their beloved resisters.

Update: davidbak provides this NYtimes link about Yanun which restates Palestinian allegations, but with less inflammatory language and more nuance than Palestinian TV. Last night's Haaretz bulletins said that the 10 residents described had returned.

Joel Greenberg's NYTimes article claims that 140 other residents were harassed into leaving over "recent years", but I can't find any record of this. Greenberg writes:

But settlers have also made violent forays into Khirbat Yanun itself, coming with increasing frequency over the past year, especially on the Jewish sabbath and holidays, villagers said. The settlers would threaten residents at gunpoint, hurl stones from rooftops, smash windows and vandalize property, according to the villagers. They described huddling in their homes with frightened children as settlers pounded on doors.

This statement is suspect. Itamar is a religious community: while it's unfortunately conceivable that some residents could flout Jewish law's prohibition of threats, vandalism etc. it's not conceivable that they would travel 6 miles to do so on the Sabbath and holidays.

Update: An August article by Mathew Gutman in Jpost describes the Itamar/Yanoun situation and quotes an Itamar resident who seems to acknowledge the generator incident. Today's Maariv has a long article also. Again, what actually happened was obscured by Palestinian TV's brief and lurid account of "ethnic cleansing" etc.

Zeev Schiff lists the "humanitarian" issues that the US is bringing up with Sharon (here). Schiff says that there will probably soon be a change in the IDF's rules of engagement in Gaza - prohibiting firing from tanks and mandating use of small forces instead.

Friday's Yediot has a very interesting long article on how the chaos at the Havat Gilad outpost this week illustrates a generation gap in the settler movement.

This article about the Hezbollah TV station al-Manar (in Lebanon) is the usual about the exhortations towards martyrdom etc. But it mentions that the Lebanese subsidiaries of Pepsi and Proctor & Gamble advertise on it.