Israel

Israel has confirmed their attacks on the Syrian regime and supplies of rockets bound for Hizbollah. The Egyptians are cutting up rough but Israel just needs to do what it needs to do to barge through the diplomatic hubris to protect itself:

Israel carried out an air strike near Damascus airport overnight, targeting Iranian missiles destined for Lebanon’s Shia Muslim Hizbollah movement, a senior Israeli source has said.

“The attack was very close to the airport, the target was Iranian missiles which were destined for Hizbollah,” the anonymous source said.

The warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Hizbollah.  Read more »

There are unsubstantiated claims that Israel has attacked Syrian government forces and weapons stockpiles.

Foreign Policy reports on the awkwardness of this news for the opposition and inconvenient for the anti-Israel left who have been calling for intervention on the side of the Syrian opposition:

Syrian Facebook pages are reporting a series of massive explosions in Damascus, as are the Syrian regime’s media outlets. A video claiming to be of these explosions can be seen here:

Read more »

An Iranian official has endorsed the superiority of Jewish magicians…at least that is what I think he said when he accused them of using sorcery against Iran. From the sounds of it they are the best magicians in the world bar none.

An official close to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Jews of using sorcery against the Islamic Republic, according to a report on the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“The Jews have the greatest powers of sorcery, and they make use of this tool,” Mehdi Taeb told students at a religious seminary in Ahwaz on April 20.  Read more »

Julian Hattem at The Atlantic asks “Why Do We Laugh at North Korea But Fear Iran?”

I reckon it is his silly haircut and dumb photo opportunities, but Iran does seem to share a secret weaponised photoshop capability.

Of course Iran is Islamic as well:

In the United States, we make fun of Kim Jong Un and the North Korean regime’s over-the-top propaganda machine. The regime may have launched a massive cyberattack on South Korean banks and TV stations last month, but we were circumspect that they were capable of such a thing. When former basketball player Dennis Rodman visited the country in February we giggled. How silly, we thought. Kim Jong Un is a Dennis Rodman fan – how out of touch! Soon after, a video emerged from North Korean state television showing Kim welcomed by jubilant masses of soldiers sprinting to welcome him as he visited a posting from whence rockets were launched in a brief 2010 skirmish with South Korea.  Read more »

via aonghascrowe.com

First it was drugs, then cell phones, now sperm.

For Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, starting a family would normally be out of the question.

But a growing number are resorting to an innovative and clandestine way of doing just that, by smuggling out sperm from prison.

Read more »

Vegans are a special kind of stupid hippie…especially these stupid vegans who branded themselves to make a point.

I have no idea what the point is other than red hot metal pressed to your arm hurts like hell. The video was made in Israel in 2012 but now more hippies are joining in the fad.

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The Incident:  Amy Thomson deliberately tried to breach Israel’s immigration laws so got detained and kicked out (and banned).

A peace activist was detained for 48 hours before being sent back to New Zealand for trying to enter Israel on a tourist visa.

Amy Thomson, 26, was held at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on February 26. She tried to enter the country for a three-month voluntary internship at a non-government organisation promoting peace.

Thomson said the Israel Palestinian Centre for Research and Information told her she should claim to be a tourist.

Suspicions were raised when Israeli immigration authorities saw she had recently visited Lebanon, which is in ongoing conflict with Israel.

The appropriate response:  Apologise, always pays to be polite to immigration officials of any country, don’t get all shouty or start spouting on about rights, and get on the next plane out. There is no way Israeli’s are going to let an Arab sympathising protestor visit their country…It is their country after all, especially if you have written pro-Iranian essays and have your anti-Israel work indexed by Google.  Read more »

Channel 2 screencap

Michal Shmulovich at The Times of Israel reports

For the first time, a man and a transgender woman were married under a huppa in Israel this week. The couple, a blonde-bombshell and her husband, whose identity was not revealed, walked down the aisle to the cheers and tears of their friends and family, and with a Channel 2 television crew in tow.

Bride Arizona wore a white dress, or, rather, a light pink one. “It’s the same one Jennifer Lopez wore to the Oscars… This is a special wedding, there are no rules here!” she said, showing off in front of the camera crew, hours before the big moment.

It has taken Arizona a decent bit of commitment to get to the altar as a woman   Read more »

Iran is dogged with controversy and ineptness. There was their space monkey swap out then the fake fighter, then the fake fighter flying thorough the marvels of photoshop.

Now their inept spy agency is in the headlines for the all the wrong reasons:

Created to advanceIran’s interests clandestinely overseas, the Quds Force has lately provided mostly embarrassment, stumbling in Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, Kenya and most spectacularly in Thailand, where before accidentally blowing up their Bangkok safe house, Iran’s secret agents were photographed in the sex-tourism mecca of Pattaya, one arm around a hookah, the other around a hooker. In its ongoing shadow war with Israel, the Iranian side’s lone “success” was the July 18 bombing of a Bulgarian bus carrying Israeli tourists — though European investigators last week officially attributed that attack to Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hizballah. That leaves the Islamic Republic itself with a failure rate hovering near 100% abroad and an operational tempo — nine overseas plots uncovered in nine months — that carries a whiff of desperation. A Tehran government long branded by U.S. officials as the globe’s leading exporter of terrorism may be cornering the market on haplessness.  Read more »

Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups are no stranger to turning themselves into instant fish berley at the flick of a switch, and it seems they like to start them young, and not just by the fathers either.

The wife of a Hamas member of parliament hailed the role of Palestinian mothers in preparing their children to kill themselves in acts of terrorism against Israel. Encouraging her children to “wage Jihad for the sake of allah” is “the most glorious thing a woman can do,” she said.

In an interview on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV channel, Umm Osama, wife of Hamas MP Khalil Al-Hayya, said that she, her husband and her children all prayed that Allah would grant them martyrdom. Read more »