Israel to World: "Suck It."

the guy with no power over Iran's military sure says some crazy stuff

as if he says anything khomeini doesn't cosign

As if it's anything other than talk

how could you possibly know whether it was just talk or not?

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/ahmadinejads-adviser-sentenced-rift-deepens.aspx?pageID=238&nID=31118&NewsCatID=352

as if

There is no upside in actually attacking Israel.

So the New Yorker had themselves a caption contest:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/cartoonists/BibiBomb.jpg

I made two of those three jokes, combined, ha!

("Our Christmas Tree ornament fundraiser has almost met its goal")

ACME

anyone who thinks iran would actually attack israel has presumably given up on the idea that nations' actions bear some relation to their discernable interests.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/170264/palestinian-soccer-player-mahmoud-sarsak-wont-play-fc-barcelonas-game

He was making clear that peace and harmony with Sgt. Maj. Gilad Shalit in the current circumstances would do more harm than good, selling the idea that peace under the current circumstances of quarantine and occupation was a peace worth having.

Israel released hundreds of prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, many of whom even Hamas admitted were responsible for killing Israeli civilians. I can't really support Sarsak on this one.

yay bibi thx for not ending the world this month! :)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/world/middleeast/israels-iran-policy-appears-to-shift-further-toward-more-sanctions.html

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/features/health/theskinny/blog/gilad-thumb.jpg

hundreds of prisoners are worth it to free this man

With all the carrier groups/naval forces in the Persian Gulf right now, I'm actually somewhat worried that a USS Vincennes vs. Iran Air #655 situation could happen again

i appreciate what a ballache it is for ppl working at organizations trying to handle this sort of thing but after the protest was too late to invite sarsak & it was never likely that he was going to come

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19861023 good piece on the sarsak/shalit fiasco

It's worth noting that this row has also highlighted the ability of Hamas and their secular rivals Fatah, who are in power in parts of the West Bank, to disagree on just about anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igO3q9e9ng8&feature=plcp

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-lauds-obama-victory-israel-u-s-ties-are-stronger-than-ever.premium-1.475832

paywalled

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Tuesday congratulated President Barack Obama on his victory in the U.S. elections, in a special message released just moments after the results were announced.

"The strategic alliance between Israel the U.S. is stronger than ever," he declared. "I will continue to work with President Obama to protect the security interests of Israeli citizens."

Netanyahu will meet U.S. ambassador Dan Shapiro on Wednesday afternoon at the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem, and will apparently try to arrange a telephone call with the American president.

Netanyahu's government quickly embraced President Obama's victory in the U.S. elections late Tuesday, expressing certainty that his administration would continue to show support for Israel.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak was first to congratulate the president. In the last few weeks, Barak had warned the prime minister not to compromise ties with the American administration over the two governments' discord regarding the Iranian issue.

Barak has been kissing up to Obama for the last month - they saw the handwriting on the wall.

Incedentally, Barack and Barak do not have the same etymology

Even incidentally

really?

Nope. Barack is Arabic for blessing and Barak is Hebreew for lightning. Baruch is the Hebrew cognate with Barack.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/11/the-rockets-of-gaza/265091/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/world/middleeast/israeli-strike-in-gaza-kills-the-military-leader-of-hamas.html

An Israeli airstrike blew up the car carrying the commander of the Hamas military wing in Gaza on Wednesday, making him the most senior official of the group to be killed by the Israelis since their invasion of Gaza four years ago.

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The death of the commander, Ahmed al-Jabari, who was on Israel’s most-wanted list of Palestinian militants, was confirmed by both Hamas and Israeli officials after the airstrike, which the Israeli military ordered in response to days of rocket fire launched from Gaza into Israeli territory.

Mr. Jabari’s death raised the prospect of further escalation in the renewed hostility between Israel and Hamas, the militant organization regarded by Israel as a terrorist group sworn to Israel’s destruction. Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007, a year after the Israelis withdrew from the territory captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. But Israeli forces went back into Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009 in response to what they called a terrorist campaign by Palestinian militants there to launch rockets into Israel. The three-week military campaign left hundreds of Palestinians dead.

I guess Hamas' plan was to fire rockets into Israel until Israel responded with disproportionate (Operation Cast Lead style) force and then score a PR coup. It's not much of a plan though bc a) PR coups are not worth terribly much and b) sometimes your commander of the military gets killed in an airstrike instead.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/live-blog-israel-launches-military-operation-in-gaza.premium-1.477850

Acclaimed documentary about West Bank jurisprudence opens in NY today.

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-raanan-alexandrowiczs-the-law-in-these-parts

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/gaza-strike-us-condemns-h_n_2132280.html

Plus they got the token thumbs-up "got your back!" statement from the US, reinforcing another narrative

Is there a reason why Israel things it is a) a good idea to put this shit on youtube b) an even better idea to leave comments enabled?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P6U2ZQ0EhN4&bpctr=1352944985

*thinks

Indeed, one must kill publicly or confess that one does not feel authorized to kill. If society justifies the death penalty by the necessity of the example, it must justify itself by making the publicity necessary. It must show the executioner's hands each time and force everyone to look at them -- the over-delicate citizens and all those who had any responsibility in bringing the executioner into being. Otherwise, society admits that it kills without knowing what it is saying or doing. Or else it admits that such revolting ceremonies can only excite crime or completely upset opinion.

-Camus, Reflections on the Guillotine

Camus seems like a deep dude, is he the prime minister of Israel or something?

he's the idf's social media guy

man, that post looks kind of like offensive trolling, and then it brings out the uber-trolls who badly criticize and demonize Israel, making any action seem logical

kind of the international strategy at play here

whose pinpoint strikes kill more children btw

KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel — Israel and Hamas widened their increasingly deadly conflict over Gaza on Thursday, as a militant rocket killed three civilians in an apartment block in this small southern town. The deaths are likely to lead Israel to intensify its military offensive on Gaza, now in its second day of airstrikes.

I wonder if this new wave of violence is due to the Shalit trade. When you let 1,027 convicted criminals go, some of them are going to start shooting rockets back into your country.

only minority came back to Gaza.
also, it's not like when they were in prison it was quiet

It was quieter. 760 rockets since the start of the year, Shalit was released 10/18/11.

well, during the previous military operation in Gaza (2008)
- all of them were still in prison, and the situation was worse.
no shortage of terrorists in Gaza.

I'm probably misremembering. According to wiki there were only 150 rockets in 2010, 600-something in 2011...

(which will continue to be even after the cuurent operation is over)

xpost to myself

The regional perils of the situation sharpened, meanwhile, as President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt warned on Thursday that his country stood by the Palestinians against what he termed Israeli aggression, echoing similar condemnation on Wednesday.

“The Egyptian people, the Egyptian leadership, the Egyptian government, and all of Egypt is standing with all its resources to stop this assault, to prevent the killing and the bloodshed of Palestinians,” Mr. Morsi said in nationally televised remarks before a crisis meeting of senior ministers. He also said he had contacted President Obama to discuss strategies to “stop these acts and doings and the bloodshed and aggression.”

3rd NYT graph. Ridiculous.