Stand for Israel

Terrorist bomb plot foiled in Haifa

Ynet:

A private vehicle wired with explosives and parked outside the Lev HaMifratz shopping mall in Haifa was neutralized by security forces on Saturday evening, preventing a potentially deadly attack. The bombs were found after a partial explosion occurred, alerting local security. Police are currently operating under the belief that the motive for the attempted bombing is nationalistic.

Sappers alerted to the scene worked for a lengthy period of time to dismantle the remaining explosives, which were concealed in a bag. According to the police, the largest of the explosive devices detonated partially, leaving the rest of it intact. A number of smaller charges spread around it also did not explode. Officers later said that current estimates put the weight of the explosives involved at nearly 100 pounds.

Israel, home to innovation

Another amazing invention from Israel:

A new device enables plants to send a text message when they need a drink.

A sensor developed by Israeli scientists sends text messages to farmers when crops need water, or to homeowners when the Ficus is thirsty. It is currently being prepped for international commercial markets.

Israel Agricultural Ministry plant physiologist Dr. Eran Raveh and his earth-scientist partner Dr. Arie Nadler spent seven years perfecting the hammer-shaped sensor that gauges moisture levels in plants and trees and sends real-time alerts to mobile phones or computers when water levels are low.

"The idea behind creating the sensor was to cut irrigation costs by up to 50 percent," Raveh told Fox News.

For more on Israeli technological innovations in the fields of science and medicine, check out Isragood.

Peres to Netanyahu: Two more weeks to form coalition

The effort to form a new Israeli government continues:

Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu arrived Friday morning at the President's Residence in Jerusalem, where President Shimon Peres granted him a 14-day extension in order to form his government.

Netanyahu expressed his hope that "all leaders will reconsider the offer to form a wide national unity government".

The Likud leader is currently in the midst of a campaign aimed at convincing members of the Labor Party to join his coalition. Labor Chairman Ehud Barak plans to bring the matter to the party's Central Committee on Tuesday.

Rockets return to Sderot

A heartbreaking piece from the Christian Science Monitor describing daily life in the embattled Israeli town of Sderot:

The very hour Chana Melul returned to Sderot with her three young boys, whom she'd taken on vacation up north to escape the front lines, the rockets were back.

Minutes after they set down their suitcases, a Qassam rocket launched from nearby Gaza landed about 50 yards from their apartment building. It crashed into a storage shed and blew apart the sidewalk that leads to the community center around the corner. The center includes a rocket-resistant theater, recently built to give kids and grownups living here a little stress-free entertainment.

But for Ms. Melul, a single mother, the disquiet never really goes away.

"It's always right here," she says, pointing to her head.

Hezbollah chief vows to never recognize Israel

A statement from Hezbollah:

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said Friday his movement would never recognise Israel, rejecting a US precondition for dialogue with the group it considers a terrorist organisation.

"To those who impose conditions on us, we say: We will never recognise Israel," he said in a speech during celebrations to recognise the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed.

One thing about that statement -- it's not, or shouldn't be, hard to understand. Statements like this should show the absurdity of trying to paint Hezbollah as some kind of relatively benign political organization, which Israel's critics frequently do.

"Zionism is the problem"?

An editorial in yesterday's Los Angeles Times by Ben Ehrenreich attacks Zionism:

For the last several decades, though, it has been all but impossible to cry out against the Israeli state without being smeared as an anti-Semite, or worse. To question not just Israel's actions, but the Zionist tenets on which the state is founded, has for too long been regarded an almost unspeakable blasphemy.

Yet it is no longer possible to believe with an honest conscience that the deplorable conditions in which Palestinians live and die in Gaza and the West Bank come as the result of specific policies, leaders or parties on either side of the impasse. The problem is fundamental: Founding a modern state on a single ethnic or religious identity in a territory that is ethnically and religiously diverse leads inexorably either to politics of exclusion (think of the 139-square-mile prison camp that Gaza has become) or to wholesale ethnic cleansing. Put simply, the problem is Zionism.

Ehrenreich is simply wrong when he says criticism of Israeli policy inevitably results in the critic being "smeared"as anti-Semitic. Israel's harshest critics often claim that they are being silenced. Meanwhile, every day the media is full of criticism of Israel, and the vast majority of it is met with counter arguments from Israel's supporters -- counter arguments that don't once mention anti-Semitism.

But is it really possible to separate harsh anti-Zionism of the sort Ehrenreich espouses from anti-Semitism? Dennis Prager doesn't think so:

Judaism has always consisted of three components: G-d, Torah and Israel, roughly translated as faith, practice and peoplehood. And this Jewish people was conceived of as living in the Jewish country called Israel. One can argue that the modern state of Israel was founded at the expense of Arabs living in the geographic area known as Palestine (there was never a country or a nation called Palestine); but that in no way negates the indisputable fact that Zionism is an integral part of Judaism ...

You can criticize Israel all you want. That does not make you an antisemite. But if you are an anti-Zionist or advocate the destruction of the Jewish state, then let's be clear: You are an enemy of the Jews and of Judaism, and the word for such a person is anti-Semite.

The "Facebook jihad"

We often say that Israel's fight for fairness is a battle waged on many fronts. This article from Front Page shows just how true that is:

The story of Todd Snider and his Facebook group “I Wonder How Quickly I Can Find 1,000,000 People Who Support Israel,” which appeared on FrontPage last Friday in the article “Facebook Jihad," has taken a bizarre new turn.

Snider, you may recall, is the enterprising and dedicated fourteen-year-old who last summer started a Facebook group that quickly grew to become the largest pro-Israel group on the popular social networking site. Snider’s group, “I Wonder How Quickly I Can Find 1,000,000 People Who Support Israel,” which he founded in July 2008, had over 180,000 members by mid February of this year.

But on February 15, 2009, Snider’s Facebook group was hacked and destroyed by a pro-Hizballah group calling itself “Lebanese Shee’a Hackers.” The hackers completely erased the original site content and replaced it with threatening, obscenity-laced pro-jihad, anti-Israel propaganda

Israel to free 450 in exchange for Shalit?

Ha'aretz:

Israel has agreed to free all 450 of the prisoners demanded by Hamas in exchange for kidnapped Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, and the dispute now revolves around Israel's demand that some of these prisoners be deported rather than returned home, Palestinian sources in Cairo said Thursday.

Ofer Dekel, Israel's lead negotiator on the issue, was in Cairo Thursday for further talks with Egyptian mediators.

According to the sources, Israel is insisting that several dozen of the released prisoners be exiled abroad and that others be released to Gaza rather than the West Bank. However, Hamas has thus far agreed to the deportation of only a handful of prisoners, and has conditioned even this on the consent of the prisoners to be deported. It also opposes releasing prisoners to Gaza rather than the West Bank.

Egyptian cleric: Starbucks is part of Zionist conspiracy

There are all kinds of lunatic conspiracy theories concerning Israel and Jews that circulate throughout the Arab world. But some are crazier than others:

An Egyptian Muslim cleric has called on the Muslim and Arab world to boycott Starbucks because he claims the female character depicted in the company’s logo is actually Queen Esther, the heroine in the story of Purim.

The logo shows a woman with a crown, topped by a five-pointed star on her head. Although there is no apparent reference to anything Jewish in the portrayal, cleric Safwat Higazi recently declared on Egyptian television, “The girl in the Starbucks logo is Queen Esther."

It sounds like a joke, but it isn't. Head over to the MEMRI website and watch the video (site registration required).

AJC: "Chas Freeman can dish it out but can’t take it"

Speaking of the American Jewish Committee, AJC director David Harris has responded to Chas Freeman's ridiculous and offensive statement blaming the "Israel lobby" for forcing him out of the position of head of the National Intelligence Council:

If Freeman’s conspiratorial rant reflects the quality of his analysis and his temperament under pressure, it’s just further evidence that he wasn’t the right man for this critical job.

Read the full statement from the AJC here.