Following a two-day debate on the Expulsion/Compensation, the Knesset voted for six hours on its various clauses and proposed amendments today. The final vote was 59-40 in favor of the uprooting.
It is now Israeli law that Prime Minister Sharon can order the Gush Katif and northern Shomron areas closed in preparation for their evacuation and abandonment, and the expulsion of their Jews. A final Cabinet decision on the actual implementation of the uprooting is expected this coming Sunday.
Oh I do declare! No just kidding. A guy who used to work with me, but is now working for The British Airways, wrote this in his weblog. It's been stuck in my head ever since.
Surely you must all know by know how much I detest the BBC, and love Honest Reporting. This time Honest Reporting even mentions bloggers. Go bloggers, yay!
Inaccuracies and outrageous libel from BBC Radio, missing context from AFP, and the bloggers demanding truth from big media.
Every morning at 7:45, BBC Radio provides listeners with an inspiring 'Thought for the Day' from a religious cleric or philosopher. On the program's February 10 edition, Rev. Dr. John Bell (at right) used the platform to describe an Arab-Israeli acquaintance of his ¯ 'Adam' ¯ who was
conscripted into the Israeli Army. There he had distinguished himself as a good soldier and was made a corporal. He was also imprisoned for refusing to shoot unarmed schoolchildren.
Through our BackSpin weblog, HonestReporting encouraged subscribers to notify the BBC that 1) Arab-Israelis are not 'conscripted' into the IDF (though some volunteer to serve), and 2) the claim that the IDF orders officers to 'shoot unarmed schoolchildren' ¯ under penalty of imprisonment ¯ is outrageous, libelous, and completely unsubstantiated.
BBC has since issued an official apology for not 'fact-checking' that Israeli-Arabs are not conscripted. However, neither Bell nor the BBC has retracted the libelous claim ¯ broadcast to millions worldwide ¯ that the IDF would order an officer 'to shoot unarmed schoolchildren.'
On Feb. 14, a Palestinian in Hebron tried to stab an IDF soldier, but was shot and killed before he could do so.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) released this photo (at left) of the scene, with the following caption:
An Israeli soldier walks next to the body of a Palestinian who was shot dead by Israeli troops close to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Israel handed over the remains of 15 militants shot dead by the army during attempted attacks in the Gaza Strip as part of a series of goodwill gestures towards the Palestinians.
The AFP caption omits the essential context of this scene ¯ the pictured man had attempted to stab the IDF soldier, who then shot in self-defense. The effect is to suggest that the IDF killed the Palestinian man for no reason.
' The HR approach to online, critical journalism is expanding. As weblogs become more and more popular, there is a growing public demand for honest reporting from the big media outlets.
Bloggers' diligence has been the source of two recent major media shake-ups: CBS News' highly dubious report in September that contributed to anchorman Dan Rather's departure, and now the Feb. 11 resignation of CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan, in the wake of Jordan's controversial statement implying that the US military intentionally shot at journalists in Iraq.
Stockholm - A Swedish woman said on Sunday that she had found a penis in a bottle of ketchup.
Viktoria Ed said she was lucky enough to discover the organ before putting the sauce on her bread rolls, unlike her husband Stefan and their children, Madeleine and Simon. It sure is a good thing she was LUCKY enough to find a PENIS IN HER KETCHUP, before applying the ketchup to the family's next meal of Swedish meatballs (oh Maria you are wicked).
"It looked like a penis, of an adult if it's human, and medium sized," she said.
"It's disgusting. The top of the bottle was intact, as if it had just left the factory. We would like to know how this thing ended up in a ketchup bottle." You know, I think I would also like to know that.
The Godegaarden brand ketchup was made in Turkey and distributed in Sweden by the company Axfood. The shop where the ketchup was bought on Friday has thrown out the rest of its stock.
"I will never buy this brand again, it's finished," vowed Ed. Really? I'm surprised to hear that. I would have gone right out and bought some more!
BEIRUT, Lebanon — A stunned nation was in mourning Tuesday, with stores closed and troops at intersections to prevent violence, following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (search), whose death raised fears that Lebanon (search) might revert to the political violence of its 1975-90 civil war.
Police raised the death toll from Monday's massive bombing in downtown Beirut to 13 dead and about 120 injured.
The streets of the capital were virtually empty Tuesday as the Lebanon started three days of mourning. Schools, banks and shops were closed.
Update: They are indeed blaming Israel, which is why I had to change the name of the post from "Wait, they're not blaming Israel?".
Israelim.com is just an hilarious website, and can be quite addicting. I was reading the joke section of it, here are a few:
HER FORTIETH BIRTHDAY
A middle-aged Jewish guy is out to dinner with his wife to celebrate her fortieth birthday.
He says, "So what would you like, Sara? A Jaguar? A mink coat? A diamond necklace?"
She says, "Bernie, I want a divorce."
He says, "I wasn't planning on spending that much..."
Modern day stork story.
Cyrus asks: Daddy, how was I born? DAD SAYS: Ah, my son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway! Well, you see your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on MSN. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a blessed little Popup appeared and said: You've Got Male
Two cows are standing in a field and one turns to the other and
says, "So Maisie, what do you think about all this talk of Mad
Cow Disease?" Maisie replies, "What do I care? I'm a helicopter!"
There are 2 days of the year when I feel I have the right to complain on my blog. The first one is my birthday. The second: Valentine's Day.
Indeed, it is coming. Valentine's Day is tomorrow, and I am not seeing anyone. Not only am I not seeing anyone, but I don't even have any admirers, or even any stalkers (!) these days. I think I have to face the fact that tomorrow, I will most likely not get any sort of a love confession or even a Valentine's card!
So if I have any secret admirers out there, tomorrow is the day to send me a card!! Yeah I know, that's lame of me. But what can I say. I am after all, just a girl.
I was reading the blog of an Icelandic co worker while on a study break, and I saw that he had displayed his results of "The country quiz" on his page. The quiz asked you a few questions about your quality of life, the food, climate etc your prefer, and then tells you "what country you are". My results were "you are Israel". At first I thought this was funny, since I like Israel. But then I saw what the page had written about Israel, and it was... What can I say. I read stories about anti-semitism every day, and seeing a thing like this still hurts.
Some of you might say "who cares, it's a stupid quiz". That is where you are dead wrong. Thousands of people see this, and readers don't really comprehend the fact that these are words that just happen to be written by a biased individual. They will eventually reach the conclusion that "this must be the case".
It reminds me of a discussion forum I visited the other day, where the topic was was Ariel Sharon said that "Europe didn't lift a finger to help the Jews during the holocaust". The readers (all of which were Icelanders/Europeans) were shocked and enraged. Everybody talked about how Sharon is clearly out of his mind. What I noticed more than anything though, was how some people said "oh but we did everything we could to help the Jews, at least afterwards".
It made me think the following:
If I am falling of a clip to face my death, what good will it do me if somebody will stand and watch me fall, and then help me after I'm dead? I was angry.
Here were the results of my quiz:
You're Israel! Though a victim in the past, you've learned very little from this and have encouraged a cycle of violence in your life and the life of many you know. You're a little paranoid and somewhat schizophrenic, causing you to promote both hatred and hope in cycling intervals. Some of the paranoia is justified, as a lot of people don't like you, but more people are helping you than you'd ever really admit to. At this point, you live on some valuable property and would benefit greatly from just giving peace a chance.
Hola. ¡Mi nombre es Maria y soy una pequeña muchacha esquimal gorda de Islandia!
Okay so I decided to check out where my blog readers are coming from, as I sometimes do. (Hah yes, I spy!). Usually most readers are Americans or Israelis, so I don't look into it. But this time (a long with yet another pervert from The United Arab Emirates) I was delighted to see that someone from Spain had looked me up and translated my blog into Spanish! I have now realised that my blog is the best in Spanish, it's even better than German (although German remains the best language for insults and anger). So check out my blog and my profile in Espanol!
I don't like the BBC. Infact, I pretty much hate the BBC. They frequently shock me, and I have often sent them letters of complaint, as I have written here before. I do however, read BBC News. I barely leave the house without reading Al Jazeera. I'm also a longtime reader or Arab News, etc. I read pretty much everything. Well you know what they say, know thy enemy!
So, the BBC may be extremely anti-Israel, but they do provide a reader with an interesting read from time to time. Such as today, when they published "views on the ceasefire". They published the views of the Israelis, as well as the views of the palestinians. One may (or may not) wonder how selective they were about their informants...
What strikes me when reading the comments of the people, is how obvious facts are being ignored, especially by the Arabs, such as Abu Mazen's past (indicating how he really feels about Jews):
The Memri Institute for monitoring media in the mid-east reports that Arafat’s newly appointed ‘prime minister’ for the PA, Mahmud Abbas completed a doctoral thesis in 1982 titled “The Secret Connection between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement”.
In his thesis, Abbas wrote that the estimated number of Jews killed during World War II was “less than one million.” Abbas stated that the Zionist leadership collaborated with the Nazi regime to “facilitate the wide-spread destruction” of Jews. Abbas’ ‘research’ was later printed by a publisher located in Amman, Jordan.
Also, the palestinians view that "the Israelis are to blame for everything". Yet, I have a feeling that the BBC published interviews with the most "rashional" palestinians they found, or at least some of them. I am quite certain that a great majority has a more negative attitude towards the Israelis than the ones in question, and experience has proven my theory to be correct.
Every morning at 7:45, BBC Radio provides listeners with an inspiring 
The HR approach to online, critical journalism is expanding. As weblogs become more and more popular, there is a growing public demand for honest reporting from the big media outlets.
