Sim-O

erm, yes. Naomi Campbell, of all people.

The Guardian:

Supermodel turned rookie journalist Naomi Campbell has interviewed the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, for the latest issue of men’s magazine GQ.
…
At one point Campbell asks Chavez if he would ever be photographed without a shirt, like Russian president Vladimir Putin. He replies: “Why not? Touch my muscles?”

mmm. Sounds riveting.

BBC:

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated in a suicide attack.
Ms Bhutto – the first woman PM in an Islamic state – was leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi when a gunman shot her in the neck and set off a bomb.

I saw this last night, bit of a surprise, seeing as I haven’t seen the news for days, and then the first thing I see is something major like this.
I can’t say I am an expert on Pakistani politics, and I don’t think would have voted for her, but I think Pakistan will be poorer for her death and will take longer to settle down in the long run.

Bo Beau D’or has done an image that sums it up and Septicle Isle over at Obsolete has done the same with words.

Haaretz:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met Thursday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in an attempt to solve the so-called settlement crisis that has plagued negotiations since the Annapolis summit late last month.
…
The key bone of contention between the two sides is Israel’s continued construction in the settlements. The Palestinians are particularly upset over a tender by the Housing Ministry for the construction of 307 housing units in the southeast Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa, on the Palestinian side of the Green Line.

Crisis? Stopping building on Palestinian land should solve that crisis, eh?

Seth Freedman:

Jerusalem is no more required to be under Jewish control than Herzliya or Tel Aviv, as far as the Bible is concerned.

I don’t understand.
If Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish state is not required to be under Jewish control, then following logic, the rest of the Jewish state is not required to be under Jewish control. If the Jewish state is not under the control of Jews, doesn’t it stop being the Jewish state?

Israeli Basic Law is in effect the constitution of the country. A set of laws that were first laid down when the Israel proclaimed Independence.

Basic Law: The Knesset (Amendment No. 9)*

Amendment of section 7A 1. In the Basic Law: The Knesset**, the following section shall be inserted after section 7:
“Prevention of participation of candidates’ list

7A. A candidates’ list shall not participate in elections to the Knesset if its objects or actions, expressly or by implication, include one of the following:

(1) negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people;

(2) negation of the democratic character of the State;

(3) incitement to racism.”.

So, what does this say then?
You cannot stand for election to The Knesset unless:

(1) You accept that The Knesset is working for the Jews, not only of Israel, but also for the Jews of the Diaspora, as apposed to the people of the state, whether Jewish or non-Jewish;

(2) The ‘Democratic nature’ is unique to Israel and must be preserved, or the non-Jews might become a majority.

(3) Inferred from the previous two items, you may not be a candidate if you intent to incite racism, unless it is to further the privileges of Jews.

Not an apartheid state, eh?

Also, The Knesset can dictate how long 18 years is (my emphasis):

The Right To Vote:
5. Every Israel national of or over the age of eighteen years shall have the right to vote in elections to the Knesset unless a court has deprived him of that right by virtue of any Law; the Elections Law shall determine the time at which a person shall be considered to be eighteen years of age for the purpose of the exercise of the right to vote in elections to the Knesset.

Not sure what to make of the Iranian presidents’ visit to New York.

First of all I’m surprised he got a visa, and the American press really need to look up the meaning of ‘dictator’. That’s at least the second democratically elected president of a country they’ve incorrectly called a dictator (the other being Hugo Chavez, and the UK press isn’t much better, if at all).

There this report from Asia Times that is quite favourable, saying he made his points calmly and wasn’t swayed at all by the prvocative questions and language used by the host, and then there’s this one, from the Guardian, which is not so nice, that goes on about his denial of a nuke weapons programme and not having any homosexuals in Iran (ok, fair point).

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino has lambasted Iran’s latest statements against Israel, calling Tehran’s pledge to strike back at Israel if attacked by the Jewish state as “totally unprovoked”. Perino said, “I can’t tell you why someone in Iran would say something like that about Israel. It’s totally unprovoked and unnecessary.”

Unprovoked? What about…

Citing two unnamed sources the magazine called knowledgeable, the magazine quoted David Wurmser, until last month Cheney’s Middle East advisor, as having told a small group of people that “Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz – and perhaps other sites – in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out.”

According to the report, “The Iranian reaction would then give Washington a pretext to launch strikes against military and nuclear targets in Iran.”

or…

Ha’aretz, on April 21, 2006, explicitly endorsed the idea of Ahmadinejad’s assassination, arguing that “his elimination is likely to contribute more to stability than to detract from it”.

or…

January 21, 2006, Mofaz had stated publicly: “We are preparing for military action to stop Iran’s nuclear program.”

or…

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, told the press in April that “nobody is ruling out” a military strike on Iran by Israel, adding: “It is impossible perhaps to destroy the entire nuclear program, but it would be possible to damage it in such a way that it would be set back years … it would take 10 days and involve the firing of 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles.”

Source

From Haaretz:

Israel intends to grant citizenship to several hundred refugees from Darfur who are currently in the country, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit said Tuesday.

According to the minister, Israel cannot ignore the refugees’ fate because of the history of the Jewish people. “Just as [former] prime minister Menachem Begin acted to grant citizenship to refugees from Vietnam, the same ought to be done today,” the minister said.

The Anti-Defamation League welcomed the government’s decision on the, saying “ADL has long believed that it is the moral duty of the Jewish nation to do all it can to alleviate human suffering caused by genocide wherever it arises.”

Oh the hypocracy of it all!!
Israel ‘cannot ignore the reugee’s fate because of the history of the Jewish people.’
The ‘moral duty of the Jewish nation to do all it can to alleviate human suffering caused by genocide…’
…except when it involves the slow 60 year genocide of the Palestinians.
Fine, help the Darfur refugees, that is not the problem, the problem here is the trumpeting of a moral duty to help when Israel is a chronic offender.

Well done Israel. Give your self a slap on the back, then get back to resolving the refugee problem that you’ve created.

While one third of Egypt’s army was in Yemen and therefore unlikely to start a war, Israel claimed to a believing world that the Arabs attacked Israel and that Israel was in danger of annihilation. Both claims were false.
…
Almost a year after the war, Israeli General Matityahu Peled said: “To pretend that the Egyptian forces massed on our frontiers were in a position to threaten the existence of Israel constitutes an insult not only to the intelligence of anyone capable of analysing this sort of situation, but above all an insult to the Zahal [Israeli army].”
…
Israeli forces captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, along with the Sinai and the Golan Heights. At the end of the war Israel had succeeded in almost doubling the amount of territory it controlled.

Forty years has gone, There has been all sorts of promises from all sides, but the terrortories are still occupied, and the Palestinians still haven’t got their own state.
Lets hope it doesn’t take another forty years.

…and never could have if Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett is doing her job.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asked British Foreign Minister Margaret Becket on Wednesday to enact a law preventing the arrest of Israel Defense Forces officers in British territory, during their meeting in Jerusalem.

According to a political source in Jerusalem, British authorities promised Israel roughly a year and a half ago that the country would enact a law similar to a Belgian law, passed in the wake of the Belgian warrant issued for the arrest of then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.

The Belgian law transferred the authority to issue arrest warrants for foreign citizens on accusations of war crimes from the courts to the government.

Beckett promised the prime minister that she would take care of the issue.
Link

This is an outrage, the parliament and the judiciary should be separate. If there is a case to answer under British or International law, then it should be heard in a court of law without exception.
What makes IDF officers different from anyone else? It says that Israeli officers can never do wrong, because if it is left to the government, I can’t see them issuing a warrant.

related:
IDF general escapes arrest by London police’s anti-terrorist unit
Blair faces new challenge over Saudi arms deal
Israeli fearful of War Crimes Accusation