7 Adar 5768, 13 February 08 06:17by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz (IsraelNN.com) The latest TV character created to incite Palestinian Authority children to anti-Semitism, Islamic triumphalism and violence has debuted on a popular show produced by Hamas. The character is a cute rabbit who aspires to finish off the Jews and eat them.
The rabbit's name is Assoud, which translates as "lions," and he has come from Lebanon "in order to return to the homeland and liberate it." News of the program and a translation of the dialogue was provided by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) organization.
In the PA children's program, called Tomorrow's Pioneers, a young girl hostess asks the new character, "Why is your name Assoud, since you are a rabbit?"
Assoud replies: "A rabbit is a [term] for a bad person and coward. And I, Assoud, will finish off the Jews and eat them."
"Allah Willing!" the girl exclaims.
Later in the show, children are taught that the Jewish city of Tel Aviv is actually Arab and that it must be "liberated" by way of Hamas-style terrorism.
Assoud asks the child hostess of the program, "Do you know the original name of our city... Tel Aviv?"
"It's our city: ...   more »

Mild tremor felt across north, Jerusalem area Monday night; no injuries or damage reported
Jonathan Weber
A mild earthquake measuring 4.0 on the Richter Scale was felt across Israel Monday night, from Kiryat Shmona in the north to the Jerusalem area.
GII picks up two small earthquakes in Jordan rift valley area over past few days. Study shows major quake is pending 
The quake's epicenter was located about 12.5 miles east of the south Lebanese town of Tyre. No injuries or damage were reported.
Police and emergency centers in the north were flooded with phone calls from concerned citizens wishing to report the quake.
Raviv Amos, a Petach Tikva resident, told Ynet: "I was sitting at my desk when it suddenly began moving from side to side. The quake lasted about three or four seconds and some objects at the house shook a bit, but nothing was broken."
Aryeh Dror from Kibbutz Hagoshrim added that the tremor was clearly felt in the north, unlike in the previous earthquakes. 
The most recent earthquake, measuring 4.1 on the Richter Scale, was felt in Israel about three months ago. Earlier that week, two earthquakes, measuring 3 and 4.2 on the Richter scale, were ...   more »

Bids will soon be submitted to build 1,100 apartments in east Jerusalem, 370 apartments in Har Homa and an additional 750 in Pisgat Ze'ev, Construction and Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim said Tuesday.
The announcement came a day after Jerusalem city manager Yair Maayan told a parliamentary panel that the government was holding up construction of hundreds of apartments in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem.
Boim disputed that contention.
"We are building all over Jerusalem within its municipal borders," Boim said. "What people call delays are in fact final stages of coordination with city hall."
The Housing Ministry, Boim said, was preparing to carry out the infrastructure work that has to be done before bids are issued for 750 apartments in Pisgat Ze'ev. Some 370 apartments are in the pipeline for Har Homa, in addition to 350 apartments already put out to bid, he said.
Boim disputed allegations that political considerations were holding up building in Jerusalem.
"There is a directive from the prime minister requiring his personal approval for planning, bids, etc," he said. "There is nothing regarding construction in Jerusalem."
Original Source   more »

The Interior Ministry has begun planning the establishment of a new Arab city in the Galilee, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit said Tuesday.
Speaking during a tour of Arab settlements in the North, Sheetrit said in Umm el-Fahm that he intended to upgrade Kafr Kassem's status to that of city and that he had ordered his ministry to examine the steps necessary to establish an additional Arab city.
"I'm talking about a modern town where a young couple can buy an apartment and live, like in any other modern city," he said.
During his tour, the minister was asked to stop demolition orders issued against buildings constructed without a license. Sheetrit clarified to his host, Umm el-Fahm Mayor Sheikh Hasehm Abd el-Rahman, that he was not authorized to prevent the implementation of court orders.
Sheetrit, however, announced that he ordered the Planning Administration to finish the general plans for Arab settlements during 2008. He said that his ministry would authorize the establishment of local councils in any settlement of more than 15,000 inhabitants.
"In such a situation, the mayor is head of the council and the city council is also the committee on urban planning - an elected mayor will be ...   more »

By: Newsmax Staff
In a rousing speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for a conservative “declaration of independence” from the Republican Party.
He also warned that Republicans face a “catastrophic” election this year unless the GOP changes course.
Gingrich pointed out that on Super Tuesday, 14.6 million voters took part in the Democratic races, compared to 8.3 million Republicans.
“There were 14.6 million Democrats who thought the presidential nomination was worth voting for, and there were 8.3 million Republicans on Super Tuesday,” Gingrich said.
“That is a warning of a catastrophic election. I was in Idaho this last week, and Barack Obama on last Saturday had 16,000 people in Boise. The idea [of] the most liberal Democratic Senator getting 16,000 people in Boise was inconceivable.
“And every person who cares about the conservative movement and every person who cares about the Republican Party had better stop and say to themselves, ‘There is something big happening in this country. We don’t understand it. We’re not responding to it. And we’re currently not competitive. And if we want to get to be competitive, we had better change and we had better change now.” ...   more »

By LOLITA C. BALDOR
U.S. fighter planes intercepted two Russian bombers, including one that buzzed an American aircraft carrier in the western Pacific during the weekend, The Associated Press has learned.
A U.S. military official says that one Russian Tupolev 95 flew directly over the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz twice, at a low altitude of about 2,000 feet, while another bomber circled about 58 miles out. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because the reports on the flights were classified as secret.
The Saturday incident, which never escalated beyond the flyover, comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and Russia over U.S. plans for a missile defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Such Russian bomber flights were common during the Cold War, but have been rare since. The bombers were among four Russian Tupolev 95s launched from Ukrainka in the middle of the night, including one that Japanese officials say violated their country's airspace over an uninhabited island south of Tokyo.
U.S. officials tracked and monitored the bombers as two flew south along the Japanese coast, and two others flew farther east, coming closer to the Nimitz and the guided missile cruiser USS Princeton. ...   more »

By Joe Kaufman
With its similarity to popular online sites such as Facebook and MySpace and its links to a network of grassroots blogs, Barack Obama’s campaign website has been hailed as a testament to the candidate’s transformative politics. But at least part of the senator’s online outreach, “Muslim Americans for Obama ’08,” proposes installing Muslim prayer areas in public places and giving Muslims time off for prayer and has denounced Obama’s colleagues in the U.S. Senate who happen to be Jewish. This segment of Obama's online outreach also has ties to unindicted co-conspirators in terror trials and has recruited Obama supporters from among the ranks of fundamentalist Muslim extremists.
On the blog, which is attached to BarackObama.com, viewers can read about “the Senate pro-Israeli zionist hawk Joe Lieberman,” as well as criticism aimed at Obama himself for getting too cozy with the Israeli lobby. As stated on the blog, that last part was derived from information found on Electronic Intifada (EI), a terror apologist website based in Chicago, Illinois, Obama’s hometown. According to the site’s co-founder, Ali Abunimah, Senator Obama once told him, regarding Abunimah’s anti-American and anti-Israel writings, to “Keep up the good work!”
While the Muslim Americans ...   more »

Hesham Islam's 'resume didn't add up,' official says
Hesham H. Islam (left), Muslim aide to the deputy secretary of defense, with Muslim military chaplain Abuhena M. Saifulislam (right)
In a stunning turn of events, a high-level Muslim military aide blamed for costing an intelligence contractor his job will step down from his own Pentagon post, WND has learned.
Meanwhile, his rival, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, a leading authority on Islamic war doctrine, may stay in the Pentagon, moving from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the office of the secretary of defense. However, sources say a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey is trying to block his new contract.
The top Pentagon aide, Egyptian-born Hesham H. Islam, came under a cloud of suspicion after reports raised doubt about his resume and contacts he had made with radical Muslims. He is expected to leave the government next month, officials say.
Islam and Coughlin recently quarreled over intelligence briefings Coughlin presented showing a close connection between the religion of Islam and terrorism. Coughlin's contract with the Joint Chiefs, which
But as a result of the ensuing firestorm that played out in the conservative press – led by Washington ...   more »

By christina boyle
Dangerous germs lurking around city gyms may be making you sick, the Daily News has found.
A News spot check of health clubs - including several of the city's most expensive gyms - uncovered potentially harmful bacteria lingering all over exercise mats, bicycles, drinking fountains and other surfaces
The germs could easily make you ill - especially if you're rundown, elderly or have a compromised immune system, experts said.
The equipment posing the highest risks are cardiovascular machines used by many people in quick succession and equipment, including dumbbells or mats, that are passed around.
"I believe it," said Alex Marquez, 34, from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, who ended up taking antibiotics in a hospital after his foot swelled from an infection doctors said was caught at the gym.
"They told me I probably got it when I stepped on the wet floor getting out of the shower," he said. "First my foot was itching and scratching made a cut so the infection got into the blood.
"Now when I come out the shower I wear slippers. It wasn't fun. You've got to realize that everybody uses the equipment, and you don't know where they've been."
The News ...   more »

Germany, Angela Merkel  
German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday to discuss Israel's conflict with Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip as well as Iran's controversial nuclear program, Israeli officials said.
An Israeli official said before the meeting that Merkel was "very curious" about the situation along the Gaza border, where violence threatens to complicate Palestinian statehood talks that resumed after the Annapolis peace conference in November.
Public pressure has been mounting in Israel for Olmert to order a wide scale military operation against Hamas to curb cross-border rocket fire that has been disrupting life in towns and communities along the frontier.
While Olmert toured Berlin's Jewish Museum, pausing to tell reporters that Israel was "at war" with Hamas, residents of the southern Israeli town of Sderot disrupted traffic in Tel Aviv to protest against his government's failure to end the launchings.
A senior Israeli official declined to comment on whether Olmert would lobby Merkel to support stronger Israeli military action in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where 1.5 million Palestinians live in densely populated areas.
Israel's recent tightening of a Gaza blockade and cutback in fuel supplies, part of a declared bid to pressure militants to ...   more »

By Mazal Mualem, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service   
Tags: Israel, peace process  
Shas Chairman Eli Yishai on Monday stepped up his party's threats to resign from the government over the ongoing peace talks with the Palestinians, warning against moving forward in the peace process as long as terrorism against Israelis continues.
"If there is any diplomatic progress in the negotiations with Palestinians beyond the current situation, and we are still under fire from Qassams and West Bank incidents, Shas will quit the government immediately," he said.
Shas has taken a tougher stance on diplomatic issues, and stepped up threats to resign from the government, since the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party walked out of the government in protest over the decision to launch talks on the core issues of the conflict, including Jerusalem, refugees, and borders.  
The ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party has said that talks on Jerusalem would constitute a red line, and in recent weeks has demanded that other core issues like permanent borders and refugees be kept off the table as well.
On Thursday, the Shas Knesset faction intends to tour the City of David in Jerusalem in order to express its commitment to the capital and make ...   more »

By Stan Goodenough
The Israel Defense Forces have been ordered to prepare for a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip as terrorism from the "Palestinians" there continues unabated.
So said Defense Minister Ehud Barak in a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday as anger boiled over in the Negev town of Sderot following a week of intensive Kassam rocket attacks which left a number of residents wounded, some seriously.
"The residents of Sderot and the Gaza periphery are in the midst of a severe trial," Barak said, according to The Jerusalem Post.
"The cry and the pain are difficult and understandable, and it is the duty of our government - in conjunction with the military and defensive effort - to assist them in every way."
Cynics wondered whether the minister's threat of a Gaza invasion was made simply to pacify citizens' anger.
Israelis have been calling with increasing stridency for effective action to defend the south. While the IDF has upped its targeted killings of Hamas and other "Palestinian" terrorists, however, the attacks have only increased in intensity and efficiency.
Some commentators questioned the wisdom of sending the IDF into the Gaza Strip on the ground....   more »

Prime minister repeatedly denies negotiations to split up holy city
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – Current behind-the-scenes Israeli-Palestinian talks include negotiations aimed at dividing Jerusalem, according to a senior Palestinian negotiator involved in the negotiations. 
"Since [last November's U.S.-sponsored] Annapolis [summit], our regular meetings have been dealing with all the core issues, yes, of course including Jerusalem," said the Palestinian negotiator, who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity. 
The official said he was talking off-the-record for fear of contradicting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has repeatedly insisted Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are not dealing with the status of Jerusalem.   
The Israeli Shas party, an important coalition partner in Olmert's government, has stated it would bolt the prime minister's coalition if it becomes clear the Israeli government is negotiating the ceding any part of Jerusalem. Shas' departure could collapse Olmert's government. 
"Nobody is talking about Jerusalem. The moment Jerusalem is being discussed Shas will leave the government – period," Shas Spokesman Roi Lachmanovitch told Israel National News. 
Olmert must maintain a majority of the Knesset's 120 seats to continue ruling. He currently rules with a slight plurality.  If Shas, with its 12 seats, bolts the government, Olmert would be forced ...   more »