Thanks, feel free to shut up now.

In the nobody cares what you have to say department the unelected multilateral Spaniard is king..

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana on Friday issued a harsh criticism of the management of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians since the Annapolis Conference, saying that from the beginning the talks were carried out far too slowly.

In an interview with Haaretz after his arrival Friday for a tour of Israel and the Palestinian territories, Solana expressed doubts over whether a deal could be completed by the end of the year, saying that the longer the sides wait to go forward with talks, the less they are likely to succeed.

“Because time is shorter, it will more difficult to do,” Solana said in regard to the talks, adding “I think we have to maintain the momentum.”

Do you know what seemingly lacks urgency in my eyes Mr. Solana? Disarming the Hezbollah and preventing them from taking over Lebanon. You know what else seems to lack any urgency on your part Mr. Solana? The removal of the Hamas terrorist government in Gaza. These are pressing issues in Israel in case Mr. Solana didn’t notice.

Nice Work there jacko

Since Solana was such a driving force in trying to arrange a ‘cease fire’ with Hezbollah terrorists in the 2006 conflict, instead of arranging to ’cease their fire’ permanently; or since he was also a driving force in sticking his toy UN soldiers to buffer and protect Hezbollah so they could operate & arm with impunity - one might surmise we could care less what he has to say.

You know what else is urgent Mr. Eu? The Iranians and their mad drive to nuclear weapons. Solana was the last man to speak to the Iranians on the phone after they rejected the latest international package of incentives, his response seemed to be that his talks were satisfactory, a position contrary to just about everyone else save the commie Putin. Funny how these Peace Talks are ‘urgent’ but the threat to annihilate Israel with WMD is not so much so..

Hope you enjoy your tour, try not to choke on a falafel ball while you are here. Can anyone tell I’m a BIG fan? Just checking.

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Yes, its been at least 48 hours since I wrote about weapons, so this is like manna from the gods of war.. A weapon against pesky ‘protesters’ who keep coming up to our security fence and causing problems so wonderful it can only be made in Israel : )

“A terrible stench - the smell of a rotting, dead animal,” says left-wing activist Dr. David Nir in disgust. For over three years he has been participating in protests against the separation fence, but he wasn’t prepared for this: Three weeks ago, at a demonstration in the West Bank village of Na’alin, he personally experiencedthe debut of Boash - the Skunk - a new method of dispersing demonstrations, developed by the Israel Police.

“We are very experienced, very familiar with the rubber bullets, the tear-gas grenades and the water hoses, but suddenly two Border Policemen arrived with strange packs on their backs and began to spray demonstrators with a liquid,” says Nir. “It was terrible. Some people got completely drenched. Fortunately, I managed to stay out of range and did not get too much of it, but the smell stuck to me, too. It was absorbed into my skin. It was really unpleasant. I couldn’t stand the stench; you deserve a gold medal for putting up with that smell.

“A week after the demonstration in Na’alin, a white truck arrived at a demonstration in Bil’in,” Nir continues. “It began approaching and we tried to keep our distance.” The truck stopped near the fence, “and then we heard the motor working harder in order to create condensed air for operating the Skunk cannon. And then it came: Strong bursts of a foul-smelling spray were showered on us, directly hitting those who didn’t move away, at up to a 30- to 50-meter radius. Because the wind was with the cannon, most of us were enveloped in vapors of stench that penetrated our lungs. On the way to Tel Aviv we drove with open windows, but we were unable to get rid of the smell even when we sprayed ourselves with deodorant. There are no words to describe it; it’s the worst odor imaginable. It’s an experience equal to jumping headfirst into a sewer. The Palestinians simply call it ’shit.’ [...]

Ohhh, I love it!

In fact instead of electricity or water supplies we should pump this skunk action right into the faucets of troublemakers & terrorists’ homes! It’s totally non violent, somewhat vile but non lethal depending on whom you ask, heck read it all. If you are walking around Tel Aviv and run into someone who smells like ‘a rotting, dead animal’ he’s probably a left wing pro-pali peace protester, do me a favor.. Give him a good smack for me.

Boash the Skunk! I’m quickly falling in love with you my friend..

We’ve got the secret formula it seems, give ‘em a good hosing boys, hose ‘em down reeeeeeeeal nice. I want to see fleets of these white trucks, raise my taxes if you must - but spray this ’shit‘ as they call it all over my Palestinian protesting friends day & night.

HECK - we should carpet bomb Damascus with tanks of the stuff, just like fighting fires aerially - Give us the Golan or Else! Sadly this may not work so well in Gaza where they run sewage out in the open down the street, but I am willing to try!!

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Olmert & Sarkozy have really made a mess of things

The pressure is off Syria, Sarkozy is meeting with Assad, the Hariri tribunal is now a non issue, Syria has opened new ties to Lebanon while firmly establishing its tentacles in the country, Hezbollah has seized veto power over the Lebanese parliament as well as crucial geographic terrain and armed itself with advanced weapons..

Assad is a big winner so far, what has all this whimpering by the west led by Olmert achieved? Nothing. Except the collapse of resolution 1701 calling for Hezbollah to disarm, the collapse of Resolution 1559 calling for Syria to get out of Lebanon, even Olmert himself did not save his job, in fact his top political handlers who represented & guided the non face to face talks to build up Olmert foolishly have also now resigned..

So far Sarkozy has disappointed as well, neither his Syrian or Georgian interventions have produced anything but sliding backward results.

Thanks for nothing Olmert.

If anything, now the Golan is further legitimized as a bargaining tool contrary to our annexation of it, and Assad is out of his little isolation box while the Iran issue flounders. Total incompetence, can’t wait for Livni & more of the same..

UPDATE:

Frustrated Israel watches Syria break out of isolation

Israeli diplomatic officials viewed the four-way summit in Damascus among the leaders of Syria, France, Turkey and Qatar on Thursday with some frustration, saying Syrian President Bashar Assad had effectively broken out of his international isolation without having given anything in return. [...]

“He no longer needs to negotiate with us,” one senior Israeli diplomatic official said Thursday, following a statement Assad made Thursday morning that indirect negotiations with Israel had been postponed because of the resignation of Yoram Turbowicz, the head of the Israeli negotiating team, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s chief of staff. [...]

“He got out of his isolation, and now can put us on hold,” the senior Israeli diplomatic official said. “He is now trying to blame us for the postponement.”

Wow, these clowns we call a government are something else, outplayed by Syria’s Bashar Assad.. and now they are whining about it, peace that never was and never was to be.. So close yet so far! We are such suckers. Assad has REFUSED TO EVEN MEET US FACE TO FACE, are these Israelis not ashamed of themselves and the stupidity they are subjecting us too?

Record of total failure, yet on we go..

Add this to the endless string of policy failures Kadima has wrought this country, in fact not a single move by this government has actually panned out, not in the West Bank, not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, not on the Iran front, not in domestic issues like education, not even in securing the US Israel relationship with the friendly President Bush! Unreal, and we are still stringing it out as the article goes on to point out..

Meanwhile Assad has done nothing, openly states he intends to do nothing.. What exactly are we gaining here? Nothing but the total collapse of Israeli / US foreign policy in the region. The Americans via Rice did the hard work clearing the jungle, and now we’ve come in to do the final paving. I say again, bring on Livni!! We need more pain.

Links:
‘We won’t disarm after lands returned’
Nasrallah says Hizbullah will defend Lebanon from Israel also after Shaba Farms, Ghajar returned.

Sarkozy warns Iran it risks Israeli strike on nuke program
Misleading title as the details here reveal Sarkozy has waffled on Iran..

Way to go Sarkozy!
Saved by Sarkozy.. Isn’t that sweet?

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Big Push: In the last three weeks Israel’s left has tried and seemingly failed to move two issues of public opinion; US Elections & Iran

Followers of the radically progressive American MoveOn.org movement have been very active of late, albeit with little success. In the last few weeks they have tried to move two mountains of public opinion here in Israel, resulting in what appears to be a massive hernia.

Iran

A few weeks ago various intellectuals and groups which invariably means leftist academics and media elites seized on the notion that public, government, and military opinion in Israel was nearly unanimously in support of the ‘whatever it takes’ concept regarding stopping Iran and this of course alarmed them. They prefer the pacifist approach even if it means failure, as evidenced by the nearly 20 year long peace process of pain.

As a result they vowed to organize, and various opinion articles starting appearing for the 1st time with common themes in Israeli press, Iran is too far, strikes will fail, the program is too big, the meme was always the same - Discredit any option save for capitulation. So far the results are lackluster for them to say the least, they are getting the ink all right but going nowhere fast.

Messianic Complex: Palin targeted in US Elections

Now news of a second push, via the ever lovable Sever Plocker, who’s mix of Zionist ideals and modern economic savvy usually make for a great lefty mix and read over at YNET. Sever is after all a great gage of the left, in his latest article he exhibits some of the reasoning for the left’s total collapse in Israel of late. There’s simply not enough meat on the left’s ‘issue bones’ to feed anyone but a vegan..

Plocker at YNET
A distinguished group of Israeli lecturers and their colleagues at US universities sent me an email against “McCain’s dangerous choice.” They were referring to Sarah Palin, Alaska’s governor, who McCain chose as his running mate. The email is being distributed online by followers of the MoveOn movement, a leftist American intellectual organization whose attitude to Israel is rather hostile.

Palin’s candidacy has irritated many among the American leftist camp, and they have been responding like a child who has seen an expensive toy being taken away from him (the toy in question being “change.”) Yet the response is understandable. By choosing Palin, McCain exposed the deep fundamental problems associated with Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. [...]

Plocker goes on to detail the now somewhat familiar line of response in the US from the center & right, highlighting Palin’s shortcomings only serves to exacerbate the American Messiah’s own thin resume.

[...] I advise those who sent me the email against McCain’s choice for vice president to read Obama’s latest speech at the stadium. Isn’t it ridiculous? Isn’t it embarrassing? No media outlet in Israel would agree to publish it. [...]

heh! That sums it up nicely, there’s a distinct quality seemingly lacking here in Israel compared to the Americans these days and it is thwarting the left in a big way, patience. After decades now of our own form of  ’just words’ and the left’s failure to deliver here, the tolerance on the old BS meter is rather low it seems. Plocker a well known and respected member of the left in Israel who himself would ‘never vote conservative’ if afforded the opportunity, is no longer prepared to tow the line. We see this also in the seeming electoral collapse of Labor & the Meretz parties in Israel, they are not looking good.

Despite the peace in our time meme and even the arrival of a new false Messiah, here in Israel the left and the MoveOns of this world cannot corral the troops. I feel for them and there is only one thing to do according to Sun Tzu, crush them totally. 1st hopefully in the upcoming US elections by ushering in McCain, and then here in Israel by ushering in a Bibi / Lieberman government. It’s only fair of us, you know.. to afford them the opportunity to rebuild from the ground up.

MoveOn may have invaded, but Genghis Khan they are not.

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Not exactly what you want to here when you’re running the most famous ‘occupation’ around..

YNET / Associated Press

Italy agreed to pay Libya $5 billion as compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country during the 20th century, the Libyan foreign minister told reporters Saturday.

Abdel-Rahman Shalgam said that visiting Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is set to sign a memorandum pledging a $5 billion compensation package involving construction projects, student grants, and pensions for Libyan soldiers who served with the Italians during the Second World War.

“It is a material and emotional recognition of the mistakes that our country has done to yours during the colonial era,” Berlusconi told reporters at the airport on his arrival. “This agreement opens the path to further cooperation.”

In return, Italy wants Libya to crack down on illegal migrants turning up on Italian shores and will fund US$500 million worth of electronic monitoring devices on the Libyan coastline. [...]

These are the kinds of things that can really ruin your week. I’m happy for the Libyans who are seemingly at least a little reformed these days, but now occupation compensation is going to be a new buzzword. Surely it won’t be long before this comes up in Ramallah as an ‘inalienable Palestinian right’.

It’s not so sexy to the press but we’ve already absorbed billions in shekel costs from Gazan withdrawal which involved several thousand Israelis, we are footing the bill regardless how it is termed it seems - But have yet to see much benefit, generous Italian gestures notwithstanding.

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That’s gotta be good for at least another 25,000 missiles from Syria.. (Updated below)

I was getting worried for a bit there the ‘international forces’ might just pickup & leave handing everything back to Hezbollah, thankfully Hezbollah and Syria have now taken all of Lebanon over so this extension will be especially handy. Don’t look now (UNIFIL sure isn’t) but apparently the Lebanon Syria border is totally open and unmonitored according to a UN inspection team dispatched to report on the situation..

Jpost: Security Council renews UNIFIL mandate by 1 year

[...] The report on the Lebanon-Syrian border released Wednesday was commissioned by Ban at the request of the Security Council to assess the implementation of Resolution 1701, passed to halt the Second Lebanon War.

According to the 21-page document, four-wheel-drive vehicles are still crossing from Syria unchecked. Berms or other physical roadblocks are being dismantled or bypassed, and units based at observation posts have failed to enforce regular identity checks of pedestrians or cyclists.

Despite claims that mobile patrols were conducted regularly, the four-person inspection team found no evidence of mobile patrol activity along the border.

Instead, troops were deployed in stationary, military-style observations posts, including in “cross-border areas controlled by Palestinian groups, where it is crucial to maintain efficient control of any movement into Lebanese-controlled areas, as these areas are open to Syria.”

The team also found that the four border security agencies that have been combined into the Common Border Force, which includes the Lebanese Armed Forces, are not sharing information and have not conducted any enforcement operations based on specific intelligence. [...]

Of course, Hezbollah was supposed to disarm, the border was supposed to be monitored and arms smuggling halted, but non of these things have ever been considered never mind implemented. In actuality the Lebanese government has affirmed the right & legitimacy of Hezbollah armed resistance! They now support terrorism, fantastic.

Israel’s attempts to get a chapter 7 applied to the resolution allowing for some actual enforcement? Went nowhere. Seems the consensus was it was better to protect the ‘delicate balance’ in the Lebanese govt than enforce resolution 1701, or 1552 for that matter. Not that it makes any difference, no one in our government is actually doing anything these days anyhow other than worrying about elections, the fact that Hezbollah is building an army and that Iran & Syria are arming large swaths of Lebanon with tens of thousands of missiles is not too much of a concern it seems.

At least ‘The Peace Process’ is on Track

Anyone incidentally hear anything recently from Olmert our Prime Minister? It is as if he was abducted by aliens, he must be vacationing. Thank Gd we have Livni who negotiated this fiasco looking out for our interests..

Assad in Syria is enjoying new found stardom, apparently he is now willing to parlay his hand even more and get not just France to drop any grievances against him, but now the US too! Yup, he has dangled the option of a direct talk with Israel in return for America’s involvement in the process, meaning sanctions et all would evaporate and Syria would be sitting pretty and all he’d have to do is have some coffee with Olmert and then walk away.

Oh Oh, trouble in Shiite paradise: Hezbollah shot down Lebanese military chopper? (Haaretz)

More good news about Hezbollah’s control of Lebanon, armed with sophisticated SAMs now as Israel has been warning? Shooting down aircraft? And of course.. Blaming whom else? Israel..

If this had been an IAF aircraft we might be at war again right now, and while the facts are just coming to light pls don’t mistake for a moment who they thought they might be shooting at. Danger Will Robinson, DANGER!

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Because no one here could care less what they say..

Up in arms, Peace Now released an ‘alarming’ report on new Israeli construction on ‘Palestinian land’. This was of course timed perfectly to the arrival of Secretary Rice in order to put the screws on Israel as much as possible. There are a few problems however with this Peace Now report & they extend beyond the mere statistical numbers.

1. No one here cares what Peace Now has to say. They don’t represent Israel’s interests, but Europe’s interest vis a vis the Palestinians.
    
2. None of these areas are Palestinians lands, the build outs are in existing settlements and frankly after 40+ years these lands, territories with thriving communities, schools, clinics, streets are now Israel and will remain so. The Palestinians can eat camel manure if they like, they should have chosen peace 40 years ago. Now they can take 90% of the West Bank or nothing as far as the avg Israeli is concerned, either one is fine.
    
3. Much of the tenders for construction are Jerusalem based, who’s final status may be delayed per the norm in negotiations but has been annexed and will never be divided on account of the hapless Palestinians who couldn’t manage a 7-11 never mind a state. They will have to find a ‘farther’ mosque from Medina & Mecca it seems, because they built theirs on our land. They are squatters and we are the landlords as far a I can see it.
    
4. Secretary Rice in her twilight administration months herself is trying to wring an agreement out with the weakest non functioning non government in Israel’s history. One so badly neutered and beyond effectiveness it is looking somewhat like something Abbas & the Palestinians themselves might throw together.

40 apartments here, 50 apartments there, the whole shebang is over about a 1000 apartments.  About 5 urban apartment buildings total worth of housing. It is hard to get excited over these kinds of paltry numbers frankly. It amazes me when in the Arab world and the general public at large people expect life to stop on account of the Palestinians inability to live in peace and settle their hatreds. Life is not stopping, not on account of them, not on account of Rice either..

“I think it’s no secret, and I have said it to my Israeli counterparts that I don’t think that settlement activity is helpful,” Rice said Tuesday.

Helpful to whom? If she means the Palestinians she’s right, if she means the peace process well that’s a sham so far, facts of the matter remain that these lands are not Palestinian, no Palestinian is being evicted to build an apartment. These are rolling dunes of sand, which we transform into communities. It is almost dare I say it with the DNC in session this week.. Progressive of us!

“The government of Israel continues to build in the settlement blocs and outside of them, in spite of its international obligations,” said Hagit Ofran, who heads the Peace Now Settlement Watch Team.

Ofran, the head of the Peace Now Settlement Watch, called on the government to halt construction over the Green Line and said that such building weakened the Palestinians. The report also charged that the government was trying to erase the Green Line and to expand the territorial link between the settlement blocs and the isolated settlements. [...]

Ya Think?  No! I don’t believe it! We are trying to secure our settlement blocks teeming with hundreds of thousands of Israelis & families, shocking. This is the kind of quality insight & analysis I have come to depend on from Peace Now. Poor Hagit is still living the early 90’s dream, nobody told her! Apparently she thinks we are going to remove all those Israelis because the Palestinians don’t like it and Europe is offended. Someone should inject her with formaldehyde and display her at the Israel Museum under the Oslo display of relics, this is like discovering a living T-Rex!

I don’t trust the Palestinians’ motivations, sincerity, or intentions.

Until such a time if we need apartments for our communities, we should help ourselves. Until such a time as the PA negotiates peace, they are negotiating with our lands - Not theirs as far as I’m concerned. We should build wherever we like, and they should thank their lucky stars we are so accommodating of them for 40+ years.

As for Peace Now? It doesn’t seem like it is happening, how sad indeed that a prominent left organization has little to few actual lefty Israeli constituents, that their whole purpose is subversion of our state to their European & Palestinian paymasters and the evil Israeli narrative. Used to be someone beyond Dr. Rice actually cared about what they had to say here - Those days are gone and so is the green line.

As for the power of running home to auntie, not what it used to be either it seems, because while we appreciate immesely the efforts of Dr Rice for a common good, at the end of the day we need to live here while Rice will live in Georgetown. If she wants, maybe we can arrange a nice walk-up for her in one of the new apartments being built here, Jerusalem real estate is sure to always be in high demand! She can enjoy the Israeli spring and we can sip mimosas and talk about the good ole days of Oslo when the left in Israel had power, credibility.. When Peace Now meant something, to someone somewhere in the holy land.

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One of the top ‘Free Agents’ this season for Knesset election lists, Uzi Dayan has teamed up with Likud

He’s got serious national security credentials and a clean air about him so far regarding corruption, which is why the leader of a small social group called Tafnit with no real Knesset success was courted by Bibi to bring some fresh excitement to the Likud.

The former General has outlined his views on the Syrian track in an op-ed for JPOST, which speaks loudly to the consensus view of the public which is not enamored with Syria as a peace partner by any means.  Dayan blasts the dialog as incomprehensible, and briefly outlines where this dialog has weakened the resolve against Syria and resulted in dangerous regional, national security issue collapses as a result.
(Hezbollah, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, etc.)

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Haaretz is surprised, the rest of us perhaps less so..

Mofaz attracting surprising level of support in Kadima
By Mazal Mualem, Haaretz Correspondent

After winning the support Monday of Housing and Construction Minister Ze’ev Boim and MK Ronit Tirosh in his bid to head Kadima, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz is expected to also get nods from the minister for the development of the Negev and the Galilee, Jacob Edery, and Cabinet Minister Ruhama Avraham Balila. Sources within Kadima who have spoken with Edery and Avraham Balila say they will both join the Mofaz camp. Avraham Balila is expected to convene her supporters today and then hold a press conference to announce her decision.

MK Tzachi Hanegbi is also slated to meet with activists on Tuesday, in the Petah Tikva home of Levy Sheetrit, a major Mofaz supporter. He has not, however, yet made clear whose candidacy he will support. Observers believe that even if Hanegbi decides to put his weight behind Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, he will not force his choice on his supporters in the party. [...]

[...] Boim’s decision to join the Mofaz camp defied the expectations of both Mofaz and Livni. At Monday’s press conference he admitted that the decision was not an easy one.

“I made a list of the traits needed in a prime minister - level-headedness, calm; military, foreign affairs and political experience; decision-making capabilities, reliability, modesty and integrity - I reached the conclusion that Shaul Mofaz was the most suitable person,” Boim said.

Ouch - As for Livni, it’s nothing personal but this is not the time for experiments in experience & judgement, I’m more than inclined to agree with the esteemed Minister Boim (Immigration & Absorption, an honored ministry here in Israel for obvious reasons). Livni has made ‘good judgement’ the central plank of her campaign, just as Obama has stateside. It’s a very quaint way of saying there’s not much to base your vote for me on as far as track record is concerned, neither makes a particularly convincing argument to me. In Livni’s case, she has occupied for 2 years a central position of authority in Government, Foreign Minister and one of several deputy Prime Ministers, unfortunately while she may maintain she has exhibited good judgement - Experience shows she has been highly ineffective for Israel thus far. Experience combined with lack thereof in her case, unlike the Illinois rockstar with a blank slate save for community organizing, is working against her.

Rice’s Arrival could spell doom - Olmert / Livni plan leaked

Recent polls show Livni has a 4-5 point advantage over Mofaz, about 38% vs 33%, within the margin of error. But leaks of the deals she has been negotiating with the PA are now surfacing, this could work out unfavorably for Livni. Worse, Condi Rice is flying to Israel in the next two weeks to try and squeeze out a joint statement by Israel & the PA on progress in the Annapolis process, putting the stamp of ‘legitimacy’ on Livni’s efforts thus far well beyond any leaks.

This is fairly nightmarish for Livni, it may result in intense criticism arising from the negotiations she has done thus far, with none of the glory / left wing euphoria over a finished deal that she can campaign on for electoral approval. Saving face for Rice, whom herself is desperate for something positive to attach herself to after a disastrous 4 year State Department stint, could cost Livni the primary.. Most especially if Abbas & the PA react with their usual sour puss face to these initiatives offered by Kadima towards peace, because they already contain some whopper concessions. Mofaz, can stand on the side polishing his M-16 meanwhile. It may be an enviable position in the coming weeks for the sly Shaul (Fox in Hebrew).

UPDATE: PA Rejects Offer Out of Hand

YNET  [...] “The Israeli proposal is not acceptable,” Abbas’ spokesman said. “The Palestinian side will only accept a Palestinian state with territorial continuity, with holy Jerusalem as its capital, without settlements, and on the June 4, 1967 boundaries.”

He called the Israeli proposal a “waste of time”.

No surprise, the Palestinians are not interested in peace, only trying to break Israel into pieces. 93% + of the West Bank isn’t good enough it seems - 40 years later the palestinians are stuck in a time capsule, keep dreaming and dying.. Suits me fine, instead they can get nothing for the next 40 years, by then we will have settled another 50-60 percent and they can make do with Gaza for all I care.

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