OK. So I just get a call from a fast-talking Bezeq rep. “Because I am a high speed client of Bezeq, Bezeq is happy to give me a free modem/router”.

At first I thought it was a scam trying to get my credit card. But I let him talk, and he goes on about the router/modem.

No one gives away anything for free, so I keep asking what’s the catch.

“No catch”, he responds.

And continues his spiel and asks me to confirm my address.

At some point in his story he mentions that my monthly bill will show a 19.95 debit followed by a credit.

Now it clicks.

I ask him, “What happens if I leave Bezeq?”

He asks me, “Do you plan to leave Bezeq?”

I respond that it’s possible.

He then clarifies the deal that I would then have to pay for the modem/router in what remains of the 24 monthly billing periods.

But if I hadn’t asked that very specific question, he wasn’t going to volunteer that information.

Good-bye.

I have thus far refrained from really discussing the US Presidential election beyond a comment here or there.


I didn’t care when he backtracked on his AIPAC remarks, I expected that, but Obama came to my country and said made some rather offensive remarks, so now the gloves are coming off.

In his interview he was asked:

The American position has been blanketly opposed to settlement construction. Do you think Israel has a right to try and maintain a presence in the West Bank - for security, religious, historic or other reasons?

His response:

I think that Israel should abide by previous agreements and commitments that have been made, and aggressive settlement construction would seem to violate the spirit at least, if not the letter, of agreements that have been made previously.

Israel's security concerns, I think, have to be taken into account, via negotiation. I think the parties in previous discussions have stated that settlement construction doesn't necessarily contribute to that enhanced security. I think there are those who would argue that the more settlements there are, the more Israel has to invest in protecting those settlements and the more tensions arise that may undermine Israel's long-term security.

Ultimately, though, these are part of the discussions that have to take place between the parties. But I think that, based on what's previously been said, for Israel to make sure that it is aligned with those previous statements is going to be helpful to the process.

Well let’s start with the question, he was explicitly asked not what his position would be, but if he thought that Israel has any right, security, religious, historic or other to be in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem (if we are to define West Bank as it is meant).

Obama expressly avoided answering the actual question asked.

He then connected building Jewish homes West Bank as “aggressive” I assume he means on par with terrorist attacks and missiles.


He then says that it violates the spirit if not the letter of the agreements. Personally, I’d like for him to show me which “peace treaty” it violates (it doesn’t violate any in spirit or in letter).

He then blames Israel by saying that Settlements are to blame for the increase in “tension” and presumably the subsequent Arab terrorism.

He then ignores the Gaza, and Judeah/Samaria precedents and basically says that an Israeli presence is detrimental to security (sic).

At he finishes off by saying that Israel should abide by his misinterpretation of the previous agreements “to be helpful to the process”. Despite not answering the actual question asked, he simply blames “aggressive settlerment activity” for the lack of peace – not the terrorists and terrorism.

But most importantly, he simply never answered the question asked, and I think that clearly implies that his answer is “no”.


Continuing on, in response to a final border question, again Obama’s response is: “Israel may seek "67-plus" and justify it in terms of the buffer that they need for security purposes. They've got to consider whether getting that buffer is worth the antagonism of the other party.”

In short, Israel really has no right to Jerusalem, even for (an Israeli-only) perceived security reason, and Israel’s physical presence in Jerusalem is enough to justify the “antagonism of the other party” and Israel needs to accept total capitulation or accept the consequences.


On the other side he answered: “The Palestinians are going to have to make a calculation: Are we going to fight for every inch of that '67 border or, given the fact that 40 years have now passed, and new realities have taken place on the ground, do we take a deal that may not perfectly align with the '67 boundaries?”

Meaning his position is that the Palestinians have all the rights, even though history, and international law don’t agree with that, and they are justified in continuing to attack Israel, but they need to decide if it is worth the cost.

God forbid this man becomes President.

The dollar is almost there. Come on, come on, you can do it.

Congratulations Maskiot!

The truth is starting to emerge on Agent Livni, our ex-Mossad "security expert", current Foreign Minister, and Prime Minister hopeful, who is declared to be on par with Bibi Netanyahu, a former officer in Sayeret Matkal, when it comes to security experience.

It appears that Livni took part in "dangerous missions" in Paris, where she babysat an apartment for 4 years so the safe house wouldn't appear empty.

In an unusual move, statements released from the Mossad seem to collaborate that.

Well Moshe Feiglin is associated with heroes.

Yakki Asa'el, settler (Susiya), age 53 was the civilian who shot the latest bulldozer terrorist. Moshe and Yakki were walking down the street when they witnessed the attack and reacted.

Besides bein a hated settler, Yakki is a farmer, teacher and grandfather. Also a Company Leader in the reserves.

Police are trying to take credit again. Who's gonna believe them at this point.

Feiglin allegedly finished off his radio interview with "Don't give them bulldozers".

hattip: Muqata

Soros must have taken a nap.

Jameel is getting a round-trip ticket to the US (and back to Israel) courtesy of Nefesh B'Nefesh and WebAds so he can blog about the experience of the New Oleh family he will be hooked up with on the flight and then he goes to the First International Jewish Bloggers Convention - Hosted by Nefesh B'Nefesh and Powered by WebAds.


WHAT ABOUT JOESETTLER???!!!!


I hope they stick Jameel in cattle class, and the seats are too small, and the guy in front of him leans his seat all the way back, and the baby he is sitting next to doesn't stop crying, and security delays letting him on the plane because his name is Jameel and he lives in the Muqata and so he gets no overhead space, and that he regrets not telling me about this before hand so I could have tried to get on the flight too.

I registered to go to the convention, and smiley face or not, Jameel is going to get a piece of my mind.

Some people have all the luck.

That's right, there's going to be a Jewish International Bloggers Convention hosted by Nefesh B'Nefesh and JoeSettler is going to be there.

So all you bloggers, register here.

Today is the 17th of Tammuz. Perhaps I'll post about it later today.

Meanwhile police arrested members of a budding Al-Qaeda cell in, where else, Hebrew University. They had planned to try to shoot down a helicopter at the Hebrew University. The students included a computer and chemistry student (as usual).

Other Arab students were reported being to have been seen last week wearing Al-Qaeda t-shirts on campus as a show of support.

It’s really only out of morbid curiosity that I wonder if the key terrorist released by this government in the next exchange (for Gilad Shalit) will be none other than Marwan Barghouti.

Probably.

Reading the editorials, you see so many of the pundits trying to take the edge off by showing the "moral superiority" of the Israeli State vs. the Lebanese State.

Gee, that's great for internal consumption, but you know what? Most of the world isn't seeing that on their screens or hearing that from the global reporters.

Little mention is made of the fact that Hezbollah wouldn't even indicate if their kidnapped hostages were alive, while the terrorists in Israeli jails had full prisoner rights.

Kuntar was repeatedly identified as a prisoner that "Israel considers to be a terrorist", though never even mentioning the little girl whose head he crushed after murdering her father. Perhaps that would be too harsh on the ears.

The dead terrorists, whose bodies Israel returned, were made to sound like Israel had done the equivalent of Lebanon, ignoring that these terrorist were killed inside of Israel in the midst of terrorist attacks, and the Lebanon government was informed of their status and their families (unfortunately) weren't left hanging in uncertainty for years.

Moral Shmoral.

It's time the Government of Israel wakes up and starts playing by real rules in the game. Appeasement and "moral superiority" just results in more dead Jews - you don't need to watch a policeman in a bulldozer to know that.

I can't properly express what needs to be said about what happened today.

Treppenwitz said it properly. Please read what he wrote.

One could wish that this is a way of drawing Nasrallah out of his bunker to kill him and Kuntar, wasting only one missile. One could wish that a wave of violence and attacks won't follow this prisoner exchange. One could wish that all the weapons smuggled in, and all the heavy infrastructure that that Hizbollah has laid down in South Lebanon is not a prelude to the next war while we still have Olmert and Barak in charge. And one could wish that pigs chewed their cud.

But no amount of wishing is going to change any of the things above.

Danny and Yitzhak Halamish sit unjustifiably in jail, while mass murderer Samir Kuntar gets a presidential pardon.

That just isn't right.

Here's a new twist in the Olmert investigation. A key witness, Attorney Uri Messer, refuses to cooperate with the police and won't answer any more questions.

Now you need to understand something, Messer has been fully cooperating with the police and supposedly telling them everything.

Messer's problem is that everything he has told the police in confidence (even "off the record") has gone straight into the headlines of the newspapers.

But the police said they too couldn't abide the leaks, and then continued to try to question him for 3 hours. He refused to answer anything because he didn't want everything he said leaked to the press.

You can read the entire text of this police interrogation on Ha'aretz.

Wait a minute! Was that leaked too?

In a surprise move last Friday, Stanley Fischer, Governor of the Bank of Israel announced that the bank will be purchasing $100 Million US dollars a day in order to weaken the shekel to its proper level in relation to the dollar.

Immediately the shekel dropped to 3.38 and Globes reported that Deutsche Bank said that shekel rally has ended.

Of course that was Friday.

Guess where the dollar closed today in relation to its closing position then?

You guessed it.

Read more.

Meanwhile, hopefully tomorrow will be better.

While the focus of the JPost article is on how Obama backtracked on his "united Jerusalem" statement, and subsequently showed that he doesn't really understand what the residents of the region want, the JP missed the real point.

Obama is coming to Jerusalem next week in part of a whirlwind tour to create traffic jams in the city.

That's right. Another person who thinks that the path to getting Jewish support is by clogging up the Jewish capital.

Let me tell you something.

When Obama visits, the city will be divided. You won't be able to get from one half of the street to the other.

How annoying.

As many people know, the Hebrew University, like all the universities in Israel (including of course the Ariel University) has a large Arab student body. The Arab student body at Hebrew University has never shied away from publicly expressing their solidarity with the cause of destroying Israel.

Six years ago, while studying for his doctorate in bomb making at the Hebrew University, Hebrew U student Adel Hadmi liberated 160 liters of acetone (not for cleaning the nail polish off his toes, but to make an Acetone Peroxide bomb).

He was caught and thrown in jail. He was found to not only have stolen the chemicals, but was also recruiting Arabs for suicide attacks against Jews – perhaps even his fellow students at Hebrew U.

He is now free.

And now for the part that can only happen in Israel.

Professor Amiram Goldblum, founder of the illegal organization “Peace Now” is now the professor of the lab where Hadmi “studied”.

Goldblum has requested permission for the Arab bomb maker Hadmi to come back to Hebrew U and to study in his lab, the same lab he previously stole the bomb making chemicals from. He has even prepared working space for the terrorist in the chemical lab!

How absurd can you get – even at Hebrew U.

Hattip: A7

I think Mickey Mouse Levy, former chief of police, deserves the “I am a Moron” award.

Let’s look at some of his remarks he made in YNET.

The context they are made in, is that the Israeli police acted properly in the terror attack and that “confirming your kill” is immoral!

That the police completely failed in the last 2 Jerusalem attacks, and the situation was resolved by civilians is something he wants to ignore. In fact he wants to blame the civilians who actually reacted properly.

Let’s take the remark that most annoyed me.

"With all due respect to the brave soldier who showed great courage at the end of the incident, and I certainly take my hat off to him, his act was the easy part of the incident."

If his part was the easy part, then why didn’t any of Mickey’s Mouse’s policemen do it in the first place? Why did another victim have to die?

He wants to give credit to a female police officer who allegedly hit the terrorist in the head from 20 meters away (though somehow that headshot only stunned him. What was she carrying, a BB Gun? Or did she hit the other cop in the bulldozer cabin? What! You didn't know about that?)

But Mickey Mouse wants to blame the civilian…

"Regrettably, a civilian who hurled a stone at the terrorist aroused him."

You see, even though the terrorist wasn’t properly neutralized (by confirming the kill), by the police, Mickey Mouse decided to blame a citizen who tried to stop the terrorist with the only weapon available to him (a rock).

While it’s not in this article, in an interview, Mickey Mouse said the policeman determined that the terrorist had no pulse. Sure. In a shaking bulldozer he found no pulse. I guess he realized how stupid that statement was and decided to not repeat it.

But Mickey Mouse simply ignores the lesson of confirming your kill. Never assume a dead terrorist is dead. Never assume an unconscious terrorist is unconscious. Counter-terrorism 101.

It has no connection to morality. It is common sense.

And we see what happens when that lesson is ignored.

Finally, if Mickey Mouse isn’t willing to acknowledge that his officers didn’t act properly, how will they learn to act properly in the future?

Arutz-7 is reporting that a bill may be passed that require psychologists and social workers to report to medical authorities "any diagnosis of a condition which could cause a person to be a danger to him or others when he drives".

Note that is says "could cause", not that the person is actually about to commit a violent driving act in the foreseeable future.

That's a very short step away from creating personal liability for any medical professional who treats any patient, and it will result in patient's rights to privacy being completely compromised so their doctors or counselors won't risk going to jail.

It will also negatively affect the treatment that patients receive as they will certainly be afraid to honestly talk about their problems with their doctors knowing that doing so risks their driver's license.

And how long before this law gets expanded and it isn't limited to driver's licenses, but puts you on a police "watch list" for any particular social problem. Not very far fetched at all.

Will psychologists be required to tell their patient at the start of every session that what they say may result in their personal conditions being reported to a third party and the loss of their license? A psychological Miranda act? (There's no equivalent of a police Miranda act in Israel, in case you were wondering).

Now there's a way to build a trusting doctor-patient relationship.



As a side comment. It's would be no different than creating a law demanding a report from your eye doctor or eyeglasses store, that every time you go for checkup or buy new glasses they must report if they think your license should be revoked or modified.

While there isn't much we can do about the rising oil prices and the upcoming oil crisis, but Israel's water problems were resolvable long ago.

Years ago a deal was hammered out with Turkey, for them to supply us with boatloads of water (shipped in supertankers just like oil). The infrastructure in Turkey was even built, and then... nothing. We had a year of good rain and the deal was abandoned.

Since then the ideas of water pipelines from Turkey were raised and abandoned.

The amounts of water we were talking about importing isn't tremendous in relation to our actual usage, but it certainly would have been enough to prevent the water crisis we are facing today.

Oh well. I guess out politicians had more important things to do with their time.

Dear Moshe Feiglin,

Last week you wrote an unexpected piece on the Bridge of Strings in Jerusalem in Makor Rishon. You are against it.

Moshe, what is going on here? Why are you beating the dead horse of a done deal? The bridge is built, and now Jerusalem will have to upkeep it. Period.

If you are already deciding to address the politics of Jerusalem, instead of your unusual and interesting takes on Israeli politics, why didn’t you address the real problems instead of this red herring?

You could have discussed the lack of planning of housing for young native Israelis in the town, perhaps even demanded that certain areas be zoned as tourist free in terms of home sales for a period of 3 years.

You could have discussed how the city engineer is killing off the city center by turning the entire area into a pedestrian walk, and making access by cars almost impossible – driving car owners to the malls, Emek Refaim, Mamilla (with ample parking) and local shopping instead.

You could have asked what the point of making a public transportation lane is, when taxi drivers freely use both, and subsequently cause traffic jams as they slowly cruise for customers and let them in and out in the single lane designated for private cars.

You could have asked why they haven’t fixed the permanent traffic jam at Tzomet Pat – and there is an easy solution for it.

Or better yet, why the city’s engineering department doesn’t plan to fix Tzomet Pat, as they are explicitly trying to drive traffic around to the Malcha roads, and using the traffic jams as incentive. (Call them and ask them about the traffic jam, they will tell you to take the Malcha road instead).

You might have questioned how the city has (or had at least) a municipal lawyer who didn’t see his job as helping the mayor promote his projects or find ways to do so properly, but rather consistently find legal excuses to block any plans.

This is only the tip of the iceberg.

Moshe, you aren’t familiar with Jerusalem’s problems. Please, next week, go back to promoting your position as future Prime Minister and head of the Likud.

Sincerely,

JoeSettler

Stanley Fisher has finally raised the question of what is hiding behind the strange momentum of the Shekel.

It is my opinion, that overall, it is not good for the Israeli economy that the shekel is so strong in relation to the dollar. But more importantly, to this layman, it doesn’t make sense that the shekel is so strong compared to the dollar. That the dollar started to finally weaken when there was thought that Olmert might resign, and then slid back up, when we realized that he wouldn’t, may be entirely coincidental – or not.

Fisher discussed the rising inflation and rising shekel and recommended no government moves to correct it such as ceilings or controls, as they would just cause more damage. He is probably right, but read the next sentence…

Fisher said something I found to be extremely scary.

"The recent sharp appreciation of the shekel was unexpected, and although we have not found any evidence for claims of speculative activity in the exchange rate, it is hard to explain it," said Fischer.

In short, Fisher doesn’t understand why the shekel has gotten so strong.

But, Fisher suspects that someone may be playing with the shekel, but he can’t find any definitive proof of it (yet).

Well Stanley, you may be catching on, and in that case the government must take the right step to protect itself.

And I want to throw the name George Soros at you as suspect number 1.

I’ve discussed Soros’s interest in the Shekel in October last year. And his interest in Israeli politics which can be summed up in one sentence he said “There are strong voices arguing that Israel must never negotiate from a position of weakness. They are wrong.”

Soros has managed to bring down the economies of countries and major banks with his currency speculation; His strong, radical-left agenda, and anti-Zionist position would make Israel a delightful target for his currency speculations and dangerous philosophy that Israel should be weak.

And that is what JoeSettler thinks is going on right now.

So Stanley, start considering the obvious, and start taking measures to protect us against from the crash that Soros may have planned for us.

Huh! I nearly completely forgot!

I'm honestly not sure what the sickest part of this whole story is.

"I can't believe he did what he did; he was a good, caring person," the Jewish ex-girlfriend of Hossam Dawyyat [the bulldozer terrorist] said Thursday,


In February 2001 Dawyyat was convicted by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court of assaulting her and was sentenced to 20 months in prison. He admitted to threatening her, including telling her he would kill her if she refused to marry him; and physically assaulting her on a number of occasions, despite the restraining order that had been issued against him. The couple broke up eight years ago.


"He loved me and I loved him; we were each other's first love. He wasn't violent all the time, only when he had a reason to be jealous," she recalled. "I loved him despite what he did to me.

By now you've all heard the other story about Bulldozer hero Moshe Klessner, but it doesn't hurt to repeat it.

(I'm not talking about how some people are saying how the cops actually got in the way of stopping the bulldozer, or about the cops along the street that didn't react).

In 2005, Moshe filmed a anti-Expulsion protest in Ramat Gan. He specifically was documenting police violence. The police didn't like that, and so they beat him unconscious.

They then opened file against him which blocked Moshe's entry into any elite IDF unit.

It took 2 years of fighting, but Moshe eventually got into an elite unit, despite the police. Sort of like how he killed the terrorist the other day.

Wake up people!

The IDF ran a comprehensive, real-world, 18 month study of gas consumption and safe driving.

The IDF placed monitors in 500 vehicles and monitored the driving for aberrations. They discovered that safer drivers used less fuel - to a tune of 14% !

Most drivers, after they found out about the device, and discovered it couldn't be removed or turned off, started to actually drive safer (and subsequently reduced their fuel consumption).

Off-duty IDF soldier Moshe Klessner has learned the price for killing a terrorist.

The Committee for Saving the Nation and the Land is awarding Moshe with a prize of NIS 1800.

Cool.

A shame they weren't giving that out back when I was soldier.

Not much to say about this latest terrorist attack in Jerusalem with the Bulldozer, except that the Arab terrorists are getting more creative.

And that the hero of the day is Moshe Klessner, the nephew brother-in-law of David Shapira, whom you will recall was the hero from Mercaz Harav. There are reports that he got the gun he used to kill the terrorist from a policeman who was too shell-shocked to shoot. (That story sounds familiar).

Guess which neighborhood the terrorist was from. One guess only.

Jewish Hebron residents have copied nearly word for word the requests of Leftwing groups to tour the Arab occupied areas of Hebron. It will be interesting to see how the court responds.

I don’t really know much about the WUJS program in Arad, but I do remember there were years where easily half the resumes I would regularly see from English-speaking job seekers looking to work at my company, listed WUJS in their background. This institution was apparently a very Zionistic one, but now it is unfortunately closing down.

A new neighborhood called Carmel, south of Hebron is being dedicated with its first 10 residents. Peace Now is very upset. Good.

Teacher Yisrael Shiran has been reinstated as a teacher after the Education Ministry barred him from his position 8 years ago. Shiran took a strong position against the left-wing propaganda being taught in the school system under the name the “Rabin Legacy” and publicly discussed all the damage to Israel caused by the “Rabin Legacy”.