Israel thwarts Hamas pasta bombs

Is pasta a lethal weapon? Can it be crushed by crafty Hamas militants and transformed into rocket fuel?

Pasta does not appear to pose an existential threat to Israel (though religious leaders might have reason to fear the rise of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, though that's another story...).

There may be no inherent danger posed by pasta, but the Israeli government has prevented aid groups from sending macaroni into Gaza for weeks.

Israeli officials have offered different reasons for the pasta ban. At one point, an Israeli official told McClatchy that they were checking to make sure the pasta was not destined for a Hamas charity that could benefit politically from handing out humanitarian aid.

This week, Israeli officials said pasta was not a basic need for Palestinians who had other options, like rice.

The pasta ban drew the attention of U.S. lawmakers who toured Gaza last week and questioned the Israeli restrictions.

Aid workers trying to get approval from Israel to transport humanitarian supplies into Gaza have been pulling their hair out for weeks.

During Israel's 22-day military operation in Gaza, Israel banned dates from going into Gaza and called them a luxury item.

Now it appears that pasta is also something of a luxury.

In an editorial on Thursday titled "Pasta is not a weapon," Haaretz urged Israel to ease the restrictions.

"Israel makes it difficult for goods to enter the Gaza Strip as a means of punishment and as pressure on Hamas every time it disturbs the peace," Haaretz wrote. "The experience from the war in Lebanon and the territories should have taught the decision makers that collective punishment of the civilian population is not merely not moral, but also harmful."

The pasta ban underscores a much larger problem facing Gaza.

While the pasta ban may be lifted as soon as today, Israeli leaders refuse to allow building materials such as cement and glass into Gaza because they don't want it used by Hamas to rebuild government buildings, smuggler tunnels or metal shops used to build rockets.

The PA in Ramallah is crafting a plan to funnel international reconstruction aid directly to Gazans who lost homes. But if there is no cement or glass or wood to rebuild, having the money will be useless.

These issues are likely to be at the top of the agenda next week at the donor conference in Egypt and in follow-up meetings in Jerusalem and Ramallah when Hillary Clinton makes her first visit as Secretary of State early next week.

Israel: The land of 1,000 apologies

Israel has suddenly become the Land of 1,000 Apologies.

Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, is seven months away, but it seems as if everyone is saying sorry to everyone else.

Over the weekend, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert apologized to Christians offended by an Israeli TV skit that mocked Jesus as too fat to walk on water and depicted his mother, Mary, as a pregnant teenager. (The show drew a sharp protest from the Vatican.) 

This week, Arab-Israelis are up-in-arms over an episode of "Survivor" (the Israeli version) in which one of the contestants names one of his shoes "Mohammed" and openly mocks a dismissed Arab-Israeli competitor on the show.

Last week, the head of the Israeli military, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, personally and formally apologized to Turkey after a top Israeli military leader said that Turkey had no business criticizing Israel because of its own bloody history.

That followed reports of a personal apology from Israeli President Shimon Peres to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the wake of their very public Davos disagreement over Gaza, a flare-up that sparked an ongoing feud between the two nations.

And, today, Israel's ousted chief negotiator on a Hamas-Israel cease fire, Amos Gilad, met with Olmert today to personally apologize for openly criticizing the PM, a move that led to his dismissal as diplomatic point man over the Gaza truce and undermined relations with Egypt, which is taking the lead role in mediating between Hamas and Israel.

"The remarks were unjustified, were said in error and it would have been better if they had not been said," Gilad said in a statement released by Olmert's office after the meeting.

That public act of contrition reportedly led Olmert to reinstate Gilad as chief negotiator.

If things keep going like this, no one will have anything to atone for when Yom Kippur comes around...

Will unpaid Olmert dinner bill roil Obama White House?

It may well be remembered as Israeli PM Ehud Olmert's last scandal.

And, if it is not settled soon, it has the potential to become the first diplomatic dust-up between the Obama White House and America's strongest Middle East ally.

And it all centers on an unpaid, $320 resturant bill for dinner with a White House advance team... 

Israeli supermodel is Israel's new eco-warrior

Fresh off providing Israeli Foreign Minister/Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni with critical last-minute quasi-support that pushed her over the top in Israel's national elections (an outcome that set Livni up to become the first Isareli political leader to win the most parliamentary seats and then watch the guy who lost to her (aka Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu) be asked to form the ruling coalition government), Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli has agreed to become Israel's newest eco-warrior.

Israel's Water Authority has reportedly hired Refaeli to star in a water conservation campaign amid Israel's ongoing drought.

We will have to see if the Water Authority faces the same kind of boycott calls that hit Fox clothing when it hired Refaeli, who drew the ire of many Israelis when she was quoted (her friends and allies say misquoted) as saying that draft dodging in Israel "paid off big time."

(Israelis have also presumably forgotten Refaeli's "I'm not comfortable in Israel" quip to a British paper after bringing boyfriend Leonardo DiCaprio to Israel for a turbulent tour. And it is probably best for everyone to ignore her "I won't bring anyone famous to Israel" proclamation...)

(As for Leo, well there are reports that Leo can forget about marrying the 23-year-old model unless he converts to Judaism. The New York Daily News reports that Refaeli's dad has put down an ultimatum: "If Leo doesn't covert to Judaism, there will be no marriage.")  

Putting all that aside, Refaeli's global fame expanded significantly because of her coveted position as Sports Illustrated 2009 Swimsuit Edition Cover Model.

As is already clear, Refaeli is more than a model to many Israelis.

She has been a lightning rod for criticism.

But now, some see in Refaeli a chance for Israel to show a different side of this conflict-weary nation as it tries to deal with the international political backlash created by the country's 22-day military operation in Gaza.

"Israelis tend to see their country as part of the West, and compare it to the United States and Britain," writes Haaretz diplomatic analyst Aluf Benn in a piece titled "Bar Refaeli in Gaza."  

"The problem is that the West is not too thrilled by the comparison and regards Israel as an oddity, a country using excessive force in permanent conflict with its neighbors," Benn writes. "In Europe, and to a growing extent in the U.S., the use of military power is seen as primitive, something that belongs to the previous century, something that decent people don't do. When the Europeans apply force in Afghanistan or Kosovo, they are not proud of it like Israeli leaders who get excited about the bombing of Gaza...

"Bar Refaeli is expected to prove that Israel is like the West," says Benn. "The young women of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are not photographed in bathing suits. Neither are Egyptian or Saudi Arabian girls - an advantage perhaps that stresses our belonging in the Western cultural club. In Israeli eyes, a photo of Refaeli on an airliner makes us more American and Western.

"But it is doubtful whether this message is being received on the other side," Benn concludes. "No Russian model softens the Putin regime's aggressive image in the West; no Venezuelan beauty queen transforms Hugo Chavez into a liberal and democrat. Refaeli deserves credit for her personal success, and the branding project needs to continue, but they will not solve Israel's public-relations problem. Whoever wants to belong to the West needs to behave accordingly, or pay the price."

 (Bottom photo: Getty Images/AFP/EmmanuelDunand)

Out of Gaza's Ruins

For a good overview of the impact Israel's 22-day military operation had on Gaza, check out this 30-minute BBC special, "Out of the Ruins," by veteran reporter Jeremy Bowen.

Bowen meets with Dr. Ezzeldin Abuelaish, visits the hard-hit Zeitoun neighborhood, talks to an Israeli military officer who took over the hard-hit area, speaks to a Hamas military commander, and discusses the impact of the operation with a top Israeli political leader.

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

The Oscar goes to... Japan, not Israel

In one of the biggest surprises of the 81st annual Academy Awards, Israel's "Waltz With Bashir" lost the Oscar for Best Foreign Film to a Japanese movie, "Departures."

"Waltz With Bashir" was widely favored to win the Oscar, and even the star of "Departures" said after the award was given to his movie that he thought the Israeli film would win.

Israel poised to win first Academy Award

Many Israelis will be up at 3 a.m. tonight to see if their country will walk away with its first Academy Award.

"Waltz With Bashir," Ari Folman's gripping animated Lebanon War film is widely favored to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film at tonight's Academy Awards.

(It has now been turned into a graphic novel...)  

"Waltz With Bashir" won a Golden Globe last month, which is often a good predictor of what will happen at the Oscars.

But the Los Angeles Times notes that no animated film, no documentary and no Israeli film have ever won this category, so an Oscar is by-no-means assured.

"Waltz With Bashir" has been widely praised for its unique, captivating and insightful examination of one Israeli veteran's search for answers about his country's responsibility for the long war in Lebanon and the 1982 massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.

Earlier this month, artists in Lebanon defied the country's ban on Israeli products to show "Waltz With Bashir" in a small screening. 

On the eve of this potentially historic day for Israeli film-making, one Haaretz columnist lashed out with some of the most caustic criticism to-date in Israel of "Waltz With Bashir."

"The film is infuriating, disturbing, outrageous and deceptive," writes Gideon Levy, one of Israel's most liberal columnists. "It deserves an Oscar for the illustrations and animation - but a badge of shame for its message."

"This is not an antiwar film, nor even a critical work about Israel as militarist and occupier," he writes. "It is an act of fraud and deceit, intended to allow us to pat ourselves on the back, to tell us and the world how lovely we are."

Levy criticized director Ari Folman for not taking a stand against Israel's most-recent Gaza military operation when he accepted the Golden Globe last month. And he question's Folman's overall message.

"Waltz With Bashir" is not the definitive Lebanon War film. It is one soldier's experience. It has already become an important part of Israel's narrative and added to the country's ongoing debate about its place in the Middle East.

As the Anglo-Lebanese blogger Doshka wrote after seeing the film:

"You leave the theater somehow forgiving of Israel's limited role in the massacre because they talk about it, examine it, acknowledge to their culpability as it arises. Which is true, if we are just talking about Sabra and Shatila, and Ari. But Ari, this is about you, but it's also not just about you... Despite the criticisms I have, this is an utterly worthwhile film. As art, its beautiful. As a story, it's one of the important stories, belonging to a narrative of this region's mishmash of memory. It's worthwhile too, for its use of irony, music and surreal montages. It's worthwhile for its self-reflective criticism: a shot of a tank in Sidon seen from the outside crushing cars and bashing holes into homes _ and seen from within the tank as well."

Tonight we'll find out what the Academy has to say.

Did Israel deter Hamas in Gaza?

On Friday morning, Gaza militants fired 10 mortars and at least one Qassam rocket into southern Israel.

Since Israel ended its 22-day military offensive in Gaza and warned Hamas that it would face punishing retaliation if even one rocket was fired, Palestinian militants have fired at least 60 rockets and mortars into southern Israel. 

In one videotaped attack, Gaza militants hit an Israeli border patrol with a roadside bomb, killing one.

Israel has responded with very limited air strikes aimed at low-level fighters and the network of smuggler tunnels running under the Gaza-Egypt border.

Meanwhile, Egyptian-mediated talks about a new Israel-Hamas truce and release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit (who could mark 1,000 days in captivity next month), have again crumbled.

Egyptian officials have voiced their "indignation" over what they see as Israeli PM Ehud Olmert pulling the rug out from under the fragile talks by demanding that Shalit be released before Israel will agree to open its borders with Gaza to allow a normal flow of goods and supplies into the Hamas-controlled territory.

Egypt reacted to the Israeli government move by withdrawing a trade delegation from Israel. Israeli negotiator Amos Gilad reportedly cancelled his latest trip to Cairo to discuss the negotiations.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner challenged Israel's Shalit-cease fire linkage as unproductive.

And, in one of the more remarkable criticisms, Gilad was quoted at length attacking Israel's leaders this week in Israel's Maariv newspaper.

"I don’t understand what it is that they’re trying to do," Gilad was quoted in Maariv as saying. "To insult the Egyptians? We’ve already insulted them. It’s madness. It’s simply madness. Egypt has remained almost our last ally here. For what? After all, it’s damaging to national security. Our very essence here is a choice between bad alternatives to worse ones and even worse ones. The Egyptians have shown extraordinary courage. They’ve given us maneuvering room, they’re trying to mediate, they’re investing efforts, they’re showing goodwill of a kind they’ve never shown before. So it’s true that on the ground that comes out as 60% and not 100%... So what are we going to do? Mubarak has been fair and courageous—the Rafah border crossing is closed, Hamas is under siege. What are we thinking? That they work for us? That they’re a subordinate unit of ours? We’re talking about a country with 85 million citizens, a country that almost destroyed us in 1948 and dealt us a blow in 1973. Look at what is happening in the region, how the lava is bubbling, how everything is in an uproar, they also have the Muslim Brotherhood, look at Jordan, look at Turkey. Do we want to lose all that?"

Gilad's criticism was extensively quoted, prompting Olmert to call the Israeli negotiator into his office for a reported tongue-lashing.

Today, Nahum Barnea, one of Israel's most respected journalistic voices, openly questioned the Gaza military campaign in Gaza.

"It appears, after all, after the interviews, the briefings and the special broadcasts, after the great praise of the military affairs correspondents and the wars over credit between Barak and Livni, that the IDF operation in Gaza was not such a great success, and perhaps it was not a success at all," Barnea wrote in today's Yedioth Ahronoth.

"The goal was to prevent arms smuggling, and the smuggling continues," Barnea writes. "According to information given to the security cabinet ministers this week, all types of weapons, including Grad rockets, are currently arriving in Gaza in a growing stream through the tunnels.

"The goal was to stop the fire, but the fire continues—albeit, for the meantime, in small numbers and with negligible damage.

"The goal was to impose an improved tahdia (cease fire) on Hamas, but the talks between Egypt and Hamas amount to the same tahdia, and some say, worse [than its predecessor].

"The goal was to accelerate the negotiations on Gilad Shalit’s return, but Hamas has not budged a millimeter.

"We restored the deterrence, everyone said. More precisely, we all said it, from the residents of Sderot and Ashkelon to the writer of these lines, but did not express more than a heartfelt wish. Hassan Nasrallah saw the devastation that the IDF left behind in Lebanon and decided that it would be best for him to hold his fire. Khaled Mashal saw from Damascus the devastation in Gaza, the dead, the bereavement, and was unmoved. Perhaps he is more distant, perhaps he is more obtuse, perhaps he is more dependent on Iran.

"In any case, we have not deterred Hamas. We may have only deterred ourselves.

"A senior security official told me this week that a limited operation styled after Operation Cast Lead may be the most that the world will permit us to do in Gaza. If we do not open the crossings for Hamas of our own volition, a day may come when we will be forced to open the crossings.

"Something appears to have gone awry in the cost-benefit calculation of Israeli military operations. The Olmert government scored several impressive successes in covert operations. On the two occasions that it launched a large-scale, open operation, the investment was great, perhaps too great, and the outcome questionable..."

(AP photo/Sebastian Scheiner: Israelis demonstrate for Gilad Shalit's release)

Gaza doctor in TV tragedy: Open your eyes to the truth

Dr. Ezzeldin Abuelaish, the Gaza doctor whose three daughters were killed by Israeli tank fire right before he spoke on Israeli TV in an incident that seared the Israeli consciousness, has given an extended interview about the attack, Gaza, Israel, peace talks and his future.

As he has done before, Abuelaish thanked the Israelis who helped save the survivors of the shelling and praised the Israeli military for admitting that a tank fired on his house. 

But he challenged the contention that the Israeli military warned him to leave or that there were Hamas fighters on the roof of his apartment building.

Abuelaish: It is painful to hear this lie. We should stop such fabrications. If we are serious about finding a solution (to the Israeli-Palestinian problem) we should be honest with each other, not find excuses. No one contacted me to tell me to leave. They sent pamphlets, but not to our area. I think it's your responsibility to go to the area there and to ask if they or anyone else contacted me, or if anyone has the courage to face me and to say that we contacted you, Ezzeldeen.

Question: The Golani Brigade Force claimed that there was all kinds of shelling and firing coming from near your home and that they thought they saw people on your rooftop. How do you respond to that?

Abuelaish: Good. Yes. That's what they said. But they didn't listen to me. If they saw snipers on the roof, why didn't they shoot at the roof?

Question: Were any other apartments attacked? Abuelaish: Only one room was attacked. What I want to stress again: if there were snipers and they saw the snipers, why they did not shoot at the snipers on the roof?

Question: And there were no other apartments that were shot at?

Abuelaish: No other place was shot at. No one was killed other than my girls. And no armed people were in the area. I can confirm that and repeat it thousands of times. There were snipers and there were armed people? I have snipers. My daughters were expert snipers in achieving their goals, in achieving their dreams. That's how I trained them: to be snipers, to achieve their dreams. And to be focused.

Later, Abuelaish is asked if the death of his daughters has hardened him.

Question: You have worked for years, particularly before 2000, not only in Israel at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva but also bringing Israeli doctors into Gaza and vice versa. Jump to now, to your personal experience. Has it hardened you? Has it changed you?

Abuelaish: Never. It is a strange thing. I still believe that this is the only way and what I did to prove it was the right thing, as a medical doctor, to save lives. And what is practiced within the borders of the hospital, treating patients without any discrimination, ethnicity, religion, name, is the right thing. With all of our skills as doctors, with all of our care, we wish for the successful recovery of our patients, equally and that's what should be practiced and implemented outside in other fields of human life between Palestinians and Israelis. Respect, equality and dignity. And what I wish for myself, I wish it for others.

"What I think is important for both sides, is not to be focused on one side," Abuelaish says later in the interview. "We should look beyond the frame. I fully believe this is reality, this is nature. We were created with two eyes, two ears, and two hands, to use them, not to close one eye or one ear. So we should use both if we want to judge things."

Holocaust survivors hit Hitler meme on Tel Aviv traffic

First it was a controversial German film about the final days of Hitler that was criticized for humanizing the infamous Nazi leader.

Now, "Downfall" has become a controversial YouTube parody that is "infuriating Holocaust survivors."

According to Haaretz, a coalition of Holocaust survivor groups is asking YouTube to remove a transformed, four-minute clip of the movie that depicts Hitler ranting about the inability to find parking in Tel Aviv.

In the parody, Hilter blows up when he finds out that his officers got a 250 shekel (about $60) traffic ticket because they couldn't find a parking space in Tel Aviv and ended up parking illegally.

"They are worse than the SS," Hitler spits about the Tel Aviv parking inspectors before denouncing the Tel Aviv mayor as worse than Stalin.

Noah Flug, the head of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, sent a letter to YouTube and asked them to take down the video

"The usage of Holocaust symbols, even as jokes, are liable to hurt the feelings of survivors, and it is high time to put an end to such humor," Flug said in an e-mail.

Flug may not quite know what he's taking on.

This four-minute clip has already been dubbed the "The Hitler Meme" by The New York Times, which points out that it has been transformed into a parody more than 100 times. 

"The meme of the parodies — the cultural kernel of them, the part that’s contagious and transmissible — has proved surprisingly hardy, almost unnervingly so," The Times notes. "It seems that late-life Hitler can be made to speak for almost anyone in the midst of a crisis."

The YouTube parodies swing from the surreal to the sublime.

There is Gamer Hitler ranting about his Last Days as an Xbox gamer and lamenting a future stuck playing Super Mario. (This clip has been seen more than a million times.)

There is the ultra-profane Hitler blowing up when told he can only get movie tickets for Adam Sandler's "Don't Mess With The Zohan."

There is Burner Hitler losing it when he finds out most of his friends aren't going to Burning Man. 

There is Hillary Clinton Hitler breaking down when she realizes that she's lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama.

  

One of the most popular ones in these grim economic times is Housing Bubble Hitler, a clip that has been seen more than 1.5 million times. In it, Hitler rants about the housing bubble and losing his money before he can flip a house.

"I'll just sell some of my Lehman and AIG stock," a clueless Hitler consoles himself as his anxious officers look on.