Israel’s News Blog Magazine: Daily Stories Video and Photos

The American presidential race is off with a bang, and this fact is none the less dramatized within the Republican Party. One of this party’s presidential hopefuls, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, has made his presidential bid even more ‘interesting’ by his recent disclosures that he had an extra-marital affair during the period prior to impeachment proceedings against former U.S. President Bill Clinton. The revelation by Mr. Gingrich shouldn’t be startling to anyone who is familiar with the former Georgia Congressman, who made a similar disclosure during the investigations against President Clinton. Gingrich, who as the 59th House Speaker held one of the most powerful political positions in America, eventually resigned this position, as well as his seat in the House of Representatives. The incident also cost him his marriage as well.

Following his resignations, Gingrich disappeared temporarily from public life but later resurfaced as a guest commentator for news media programs, such as Fox News. With a number of Republican and Democratic ‘wannabe’ hopefuls already throwing their hats into the political arena, including former New York mayor Rudolph (Rudy) Giuliani, many people are wondering why Gingrich has suddenly decided to bring his questionable past to the fore front once again. By declaring that he has asked for God’s forgiveness for his extra marital activities, Gingrich appears to be trying to vindicate himself by comparing his affair to that of former president Bill Clinton by saying that Clinton’s crimes were much greater due to the former President’s attempt to cover up his relationship with a junior White House aid, as well as other crimes, including contempt of Congress.

Gingrich’s desire to run for the American Presidency lumps him together with other Republican hopefuls, with Rudy Giuliani being considered the apparent front runner. Giuliani himself has had a very “colorful” personal life, including being married twice and having a number of extra marital affairs. Perhaps Mr. Gingrich feels that by “letting it all hang out” he can put this sordid business out of the way and then proceed to clean up his political act. Most Americans, however, are not so keen on accepting his attempts to turn over a new personal and political leaf. It is still very early in the campaign, and there are surely many more capable candidates out there with much cleaner personal and political ‘laundry’ to display.

Gingrich’s appearances on several American talk shows, as well as being a guest commentator on Fox News, indicate that he might become an acceptable journalist or talk show host; and this may be his best ‘calling’ in respect to his personal future. He could wind up being a permanent member of the Fox News staff; or even the host of a program such as The Tonight Show, presently hosted by TV personality Jay Leno. After all, Gingrich has plenty of material to use in the program’s beginning monolog.

At the end of the day, Mr. Gingrich’s political antics may remind many of words immortalized by American circus promoter P.T. Barnum, who said that “you can fool some people some of the time, but not everyone all of the time”.

Announcement of the formation of a Palestinian “National Unity” government hasn’t been positively received by neither Israel nor the United States. Following a state of near civil war between factions led by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Fatah head Mahmoud Abbas, the two groups finally agreed to form a Palestinian version of a government of national unity. Almost immediately after this feat was done, with kisses and smiles by the two sides, P.A. Prime Minister Haniyeh repeated his party’s announcement that the new government had no plans to recognize Israel. Israeli P.M. Olmert countered by declaring that Israel would not recognize the new government, and will continue its boycott as long as current policies were in place.

These policies include continuance of terror attacks against Israeli targets, smuggling of weapons into P.A. territory, and the continued holding of Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Shalit, who has been held captive by Palestinian terrorists (and perhaps formally by Hamas itself) has not been heard from since his capture at the end on June, 2006. The only indication that he may still be alive comes from a letter in January, 2007, which reportedly was written by the captive soldier to his parents.

The new government did enable some commerce to take place between Israel and the P.A. when more than 1,300 tons of strawberries, 18 million flowers, and 1,600 tons of fresh vegetables were allowed to pass from Gaza to Israeli and European markets via the Karni Checkpoint. Even that gesture was shattered on Monday with a Palestinian instigated shooting attack against Israeli transport drivers and electrical workers. When asked about this incident, and how it might effect future relations between the two sides, P.A. government spokesman Naazi Hamed said that despite this shooting incident Palestinian P.M. Haniyeh “will make all efforts to keep the ceasefire in effect between Palestine and Israel”. Those ‘efforts’ apparently haven’t worked though, in light of Monday’s shooting incident. When asked by a Channel 2 reporter if Cpl Shalit’s fate will be decided soon, Mr. Hamed didn’t seem to have any good news either. “We (the new P.A. government) are making all efforts to solve this issue” he continued.

As a side note, it seems that some European governments are agreeing to recognize the new P.A. government as being official. The Swiss government was one of the first to send their ambassador from Israel to meet with both Haniyeh and Abbas. Even the U.S. government, though not officially recognizing the new P.A. entity announced that they would still meet with Mr. Abbas and his ministers. Since they (Abbas and the PLO) are now part of the new N.U. government, this announcement on behalf of the American government is almost like de-facto recognition.

The Israeli military is watching events in Gaza very closely; and despite the shooting incident is showing remarkable restraint. How long this restraint can continue, especially in light of Monday’s terror incident is anybody’s guess.

One might wonder what Yasser Arafat, the founding father of the PLO, and whose call for armed resistance continued throughout his life, would have done in the present situation. With Arafat in charge, it would surely be “business as usual”.

And with Abbas and Haniyeh now running the show, Arafat would have smiled.

This is sort of an odd picture I thought. I got it from People.

Israeli Vice Premier and former Prime Minister Shimon Peres requested a meeting with DiCaprio, 32, within hours of the actor’s March 11 arrival in Tel Aviv with his Israeli girlfriend, model Bar Refaeli, 21, a Peres aide tells PEOPLE.

“The meeting was pleasant and interesting,” says the aide. “Shimon told Leo about his Peace Valley project [a joint Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian economic development plan] and Leo spoke about [11th Hour,] his documentary on the environment.”

The aide says Peres asked DiCaprio to help promote the stalled Middle East peace process and to further campaign for protecting the environment globally. According to the source, DiCaprio promised to help on both issues.

DiCaprio was plagued by local photographers and barely escaped in Jerusalem the other day. He stayed with Bar’s family in Hod HaSahron. They had a tearful goodbye at the airport and seem to be good together. Hope he comes again

I am a big fan of Jonathan Harris. His Internet work was featured on OJ before a couple of times - you can see the post on We Feel Fine & Love Lines here. So when I get this email from Jonathan Harris about his latest project I was excited. As usual, Jonathan is able to clearly visualize the human side of the Internet. In Universe he uses the news information from daylife.com, a new news aggregation site that presents information in a different format, to show us our mythology - events, quotes, stories, people that are part of our daily life. If you want to understand more about how Universe works, look at Stages. The Universe is an applet that translates the news streams into a “real” graphic universe where the visitor can search any topic across any timeline, look at the major events, stories, pictures and people. The user can even select the backdrop color for his personal universe and the result is remarkable. Amazing work !

In his words:

Universe presents an interactive night sky, composed of thousands of twinkling stars, which then connect to form constellations. Each of these constellations has a specific counterpart in the physical world — a story, a person, a quote, an image, a company, a nation, a mythic theme. Any constellation can be clicked, making it the center of the universe, and causing all other stars to enter its orbit. Universe is infinitely large, and each person’s path through it will be different. For an explanation of how it works, read “Stages”. For a longer discussion of the ideas behind the piece, read “Statement”.
Jonathan Harris

This is what an Israel search for people looks like..

This is an oldie but a goody. Street surfing in Saudi Arabia. Those must be some killer sandals…

After Six months in El Salvador, Tzuriel Refael our man in El Salvador is being shipped home. As you may have heard, here, here, here and here.

Tzuriel was found by local police near his residence, drunk, gagged and wearing several sex toys. After they untied him and removed the little rubber ball from his mouth he told police that he was Israel’s ambassador (AHHH can you feel the pride…).

We just have all kind of luck with our diplomats:

2000 - French Ambassador dies in hotel room under suspicious circumstances. He was NOT with his wife.

2005 – Appointment of Australian diplomat canceled after he published nude Brazilian women on the Internet – while on a mission in Brazil.

2006 - Ambassador to Australia, Naftali Tamir, said in interview that Israel and Australia are white sisters amid “the yellow race” of Asia.

But seriously, you have to wonder about the quality of the appointment process in the foreign ministry. Maybe we should set our standard requirements a little higher, or at least demand to see the kind of underwear they’re wearing…

(Hat Tip: Ynet - Avi Muaalem)
The first thing I heard this morning on the news is the weekend blood report. We had over the weekend 6 people killed in car accidents: A police officer father of 3 was killed, a 14 year old on a tractor, a 33 year old motorcycle rider, a 75 year old man killed in a head to head collision and a mother and daughter.

This is all on top of a horrendous car accident that killed 5 co-workers from Egged (Bus Transportation Company) last Thursday, on their way back from work. The accident is believed to be the result of failure to stop at a Red light and alcohol might be a contributing factor. Since the beginning of the year there were 85 killed in car accidents.

Avi Dichter, Minister of Internal Security, asked the chief of police to prepare an “emergency plan” to combat the increase in accidents.

What is really concerning is this. The Channel 10 TV news commentator after describing the carnage this weekend ended the story with:

“..our reporter added that even with the high number of accidents this weekend, we are still below the number of dead for the same period last year”.

Well, that’s great then. We are doing okay! 15 is a reasonable number as long as we “make the numbers”. Is this a joke? Did someone actually listen to this report?

What’s McDonald’s up to in this video - is this legal?

This article made me smile and come on, you know that there are people over in Iran just flipping out about now….

A retired Iranian general who went missing in Turkey last month has defected and sought asylum in the US, according to a well-connected Arabic newspaper published in London.
The newspaper, al-Shark al-Awsat, cited “high-profile” sources saying former Iranian deputy defence minister and Revolutionary Guard commander Ali Reza Asghari had gone over to the West.

Reports from Istanbul that General Asghari’s family had also disappeared in Turkey support the likelihood that he defected rather than was kidnapped by either the CIA or by Israel’s Mossad, as has been speculated. The general went missing from his Istanbul hotel a month ago.

Iranian authorities, who have been silent on the disappearance until this week, claim he has been abducted. “It is likely Asghari has been abducted by Western intelligence services,” said Iran’s top police officer, General Esmaeil Ahmadi Moghaddam.

Defection of such a high-ranking figure would leave no external enemy to blame and would be seen as a rejection of the Islamic state by someone who well knows its inner workings.

There are tons of funny video clips out there and so when I get an email from someone claiming that they have “the funniest video clip online” attached, I am a little skeptic. Well. Let me tell you something, this is a clip that is guaranteed to make you laugh. If you are watching this at work, please make sure the office door is closed or that there is no one around to hear you laugh because you can really lose control here..

Hat Tip: glumbert.com

Have a great week