National Infrastructures Minister Yoseph Paritzky has ordered an assessment of the old oil line from Iraq to Haifa.
From Ha’aretz:
Paritzky explained to Haaretz Sunday that resurrecting the pipeline to Haifa could save Israel the high cost of shipping oil from Russia. He is certain that the Americans would respond favorably to the idea, since the pipeline would bring Iraqi oil directly to the Mediterranean.
A suicide bombing at a checkpoint killed five US soldiers in Iraq. I think it’s safe to say that this isn’t going to be the last.
Gil joined the blog stock market and it sounded interesting enough so I joined too.
I’m a good investment. Just ask my wife.
Remedy and Cappadonna to perform in Israel
It’s about time that some international musicians are coming to Israel. Members of the Wu-Tang Clan’s extended family ( Remedy and Cappadonna) will be coming to Israel in May for several concerts. They’ll be performing with Subliminal, one of Israel’s most popular rap acts.
Before the second Intifada began there were a number of rock acts visiting Israel. In the past ten years, Guns N’ Roses (Axl shouted Shalom Motherf%ckers and Slash tore up his axe with Hava Nagila!), the Beastie Boys, Aerosmith, Faith No More, Nick Cave, Alanis Morisette, Massive Attack, Radiohead, Run DMC, Chemical Brothers, Patti Smith, Suzanne Vega, U2 and REM all performed here. Perry Ferrel (Bernstein!) came here on a spiritual journey. I had the bizarre experience of serving him wine spritzers while working as a bartender in Jerusalem. I must also mention, Metallica, who didn’t drink all that much and were very polite guys.
The last big act that was supposed to perform here was the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They pulled out, not even President Clinton could convince them to come.
Smaller indie acts like Mercury Rev, Atom and his Package and Firewater all performed here as well.
The last international act I saw here was Labrat, a grindcore metal outfit.
I saw on MTV that Moby was going to be performing in Beirut. I wrote him an email asking why Beirut and not Tel Aviv but he didn’t respond. Maybe his ex-girlfriend Natalie Portman can talk him into it. I have been thinking about starting a website and a PR blitz to try to encourage rock acts to return to perform. I think an appropriate name for the website would be rockisraelnow.com.
If there are any rock stars reading this let me know what we can do to repair this desperate situation. The biggest crime of all is withholding rock and roll from our youth.
Bring the rock!
Ha’aretz is reporting that Syria is allowing volunteers to cross into Iraq to join the fight against US and British forces. Majority of them are Palestinians of course.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the story is this:
The passage of volunteers with Damascus’s consent has given rise to the theory that the U.S.-fired missile that struck a Syrian bus traveling in Iraq was an intentional attack on a busload of such volunteers. The bus left Damascus on Sunday and was hit by the missile some 50 kilometers inside Iraqi territory. The missile strike left five people dead and dozens injured.
Read the entire story here.
Actually I take that back. The most interesting part of the story is this:
Report: Saddam selling off valuables to prepare for exile
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has made extensive preparations to flee Iraq, and he and several of his most senior aides - including Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz - have already smuggled family members out to Syria, the British Daily Telegraph reported on Friday.
The Telegraph reported that Saddam has been selling off property and valuables to raise millions for his exile and has an aircraft waiting on 24-hour-a-day standby to fly him out of the country.
In addition, Saddam’s first wife Sajida fled to Damascus days before the Baghdad attack began, along with three truckloads of possessions and 60 bodyguards, the paper reported. She is reportedly staying with Iraq’s ambassador to Syria.
I wonder who is next on America’s list…..hmmmmm.
A good friend of Israel has passed away.
The UN does not hold anti-Semitism in contempt. On the contrary, it is notorious for its anti-Semitic position. It has passed hundreds of anti-Israeli resolutions. When, in 1975, it passed a criminal resolution equating Zionism with racism, the UN delegate from Costa-Rica noted that the resolution “was an invitation to genocide against the Jewish people. . . .
It would be tempting to see in this propaganda nothing more than bigotry of a quite traditional sort that can, sooner or later, be overcome. But the anti-Israel, anti-Zionist campaign is not uninformed bigotry, it is conscious politics. …Further, this fact of world politics creates altogether new problems for those interested in the fate of democracies in the world, and of Israel in the Middle East. It is not merely that our adversaries have commenced an effort to destroy the legitimacy of a kindred democracy through the incessant repetition of the Zionist-racist lie. It is that others can come to believe it also. Americans among them. ,
– Ambassador Patrick Moynihan, in the introduction to “The Anti-Zionist Complex”, by Jacques Givet
Back in 1975, as Ambassador to the UN, Moynihan delivered an impassioned speech as an ardent opponent of the U.N. passed resolution that Zionism a form of racism.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse.
Professional Likud hack Roni Bar-on announced today that he will be running for Mayor of Jerusalem. Read all about it. Corrupt MoFo. I am so damn happy to be out of that city. It’s doomed. Doomed, doomed, doomed. No, not in a apocalyptic way…and I’m not expecting the Messiah to walk through the Golden gate any time soon. In other Jerusalem news, it looks like both Yisrael B’Aliyah and Shinui will both be running for the first time in Jerusalem municipal elections. They probably don’t have a chance anyway. The secular voters barely voted in the last race. Turnout among the Haredim was about 350 percent. Some even voted twice!
Whatever. It looks like the only thing that can save that sorry city is if the Messiah actually showed up.
I wouldn’t be into that though.
There is a lot going on here in Israel in the political arena. I have offer you my favorite news item of the week thus far. Bibi has introduced his economic plan which includes a 21 percent cut in the salaries of civil servants. Our lovely representatives in the Knesset fall under these cuts. They of course have chosen to give themselves just a 8 percent cut. I mean, they have families to feed too.
Knesset members make NIS 30,232 a month, with their cuts they’ll be making only NIS 27,813 a month. Now, that’s only 20,813 shekels more than the average Israeli! They do deserve a vacation though - they have been working so hard since the FORTY days that have passed when they were sworn in. I’m sure their SIXTEEN Knesset plenums were exhausting. They deserve a break. A month and a half sounds good, no? Why not come back on MAY 12. Read about it here.
Ruby Rivlin, speaker of the Knesset said that one of his goals was to improve the image of the Knesset.
Piece of advice Mr. Speaker…hire a PR firm.
Busy couple of days. Apologies for not posting. I’ll be posting as part of The Command Post community blog. Check it often for breaking news from bloggers throughout the world. Israeli Guy and Ribbity Blog, fellow Israeli bloggers are members as well. Worth checking out.
Just got back from the market at Machane Yehuda. The place was completely empty which was nice for a change. Security however was tighter today than I have ever seen before. A border policeman pissed me off when he gave me the third degree. I don’t think I look the least bit suspicious, I wasn’t carrying a bag and I was with my wife who probably is the least suspicious looking person in the world.
He asked me for my identity card, which of course I presented him. He took it from me and glanced at my ID and my face about five times. He asks me where I am from, I tell him and he obviously has no idea where I am talking about. Meanwhile, during my shakedown and interrogation about ten different people walk by without being checked.
I’m all for tight security but this was absurd.
Whatever happened to the good ole days of racial profiling?
It looks like Israelis are resigned to the fact that Iraq won’t be launching any missiles in our direction whatsoever. It’s still not completely clear whether this is true or not - only time will tell. The only people I saw carrying their masks were a couple of schoolchildren.
It totally slipped my mind to bring them with us. I didn’t intentionally not bring the masks, it just didn’t cross my mind. I just don’t feel all that threatened.
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