Like a malevolent Fred Dibnah tribute act.

Yeah! Go Israel!

From the BBC:

Israel has given vaccinations against coronavirus to more than one million people, the highest rate in the world, as global immunisation efforts step up.

Israel has a rate of 11.55 vaccination doses per 100 people, followed by Bahrain at 3.49 and the UK at 1.47, according to a global tracking website affiliated with Oxford University.

Fun Online Polls: Israel & Free Wifi

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Which of the following has a smaller surface area than Israel?
Albania - 7 votes
Latvia - 12 votes
New Jersey - 17 votes
Sicily - 13 votes
Wales - 26 votes

60 voters

Answer: Wales is the only territory smaller than Israel.

Clearly, up to 15 people didn't understand the question and voted for more than once option (75 votes cast minus 60 voters) when the question clearly asked "which… has" and not "which… have".

Suffice to say, about one-third of people at least have a vague grasp of how tiny Israel is. And I suppose, like Wales, most of the population is crammed into a small part of the country and the rest of it is sparsely inhabited mountains/desert.

Whatever you say about the behaviour of the actions of the 'State of Israel' in the abstract sense, they are not really asking for much in terms of territory.
---------------------
This weeks Fun Online Poll is inspired by a tweet by Jackart:

Has anyone, anywhere, ever connected to free wifi successfully? pic.twitter.com/nXLm3ueYpl

— Jackart (@VeryBritishDude) November 2, 2015

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Is it racist & countries smaller than Israel.

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Is it racist if a black British woman tells a woman in a full-face burka to go back to her own country?

Yes - 40%
No - 60%

A good turnout with 126 votes. Thanks to everybody who took part.

I was with the majority on this one.

It is clear that "Jewish" is both a people/race and a religion, and there is a ninety percent overlap between "Hindus" and "Indians", in which case it would be impossible/futile to say whether criticising members of either group simply for being members of that group would be 'religionist' or 'racist'*, but Islam is not a race. It's not even a religion if you ask me, it's an inferiority complex/massive grudge against 'everybody else'.

* Unless somebody could show that he dislikes all Indians equally, be they Hindu, Sikh, Christian or Muslim. That would just be racist but at least no religious prejudice involved.
----------------------
Just for fun, this week let's have a geography/general knowledge quiz: "Which of the following has a smaller surface area than Israel?".

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Benjamin Netanyahu makes a fair point.

Poor old Bibi was being wildly misquoted on the basis of the normal level of exaggeration you would expect from a politician playing to a particular gallery.

If you read the actual text of his recent speech, you can see it was just a bit of hyperbole not central to anything. You also get this bit of poetry:

The sixth lie is that the reason we have this increase is not only a surge in settlements, it’s the stagnation in the peace process.

Well, some of the worst terrorism that Israel has experienced in its history occurred when the peace process was at its peak.

We’ve had terrorism when there was a peace process. We’ve had terrorism when there was no peace process.

We’ve had terrorism when there was an Israel. We’ve had terrorism when there was no Israel.

We’ve had terrorism when there were settlements. We’ve had terrorism when there were no settlements, when we didn’t even control Judea and Samaria.

The real reason we have this terrorism is not because the terrorists are frustrated in the peace process. They’re frustrated because there’s a State of Israel and that frustration will continue.

Even though we'll have to mark him down for the slight contradiction about there being terrorism (by Arabs against Jews, presumably) before the State of Israel existed, and then saying that terrorism will continue as long the State of Israel exists.

Warsi gets arsey...

... over Gazi:

Foreign Office minister Baroness Warsi has resigned from the government, saying its policy on the crisis in Gaza is "morally indefensible"...

Labour leader Ed Miliband told the BBC: "The government's position is wrong and I think Sayeeda Warsi's statement is completely right about this." He said that Mr Cameron had to "think much more clearly" about policy on Gaza and had to "break his silence" over Israel's actions.

The UK government's does not appear to have any 'policy' whatsoever on the current Israel-Gaza flare up, and rightly so. It's none of our business, not our fault, not our problem.*

I mean, if there were any Jewish members of the Cabinet (I'm not sure there are) would we expect them to resign for the fact that Cameron has failed to 'condemn' Hamas' idiotic behaviour?

* I'm not exactly Cameron's biggest fan, but he is a great war leader, up there with John Major. For whatever reason, right or wrong (i.e. oil), Cameron and Sarkozy decided to help topple Gaddafi and they got away with it, quick in and out, job done. Choose your battles and choose ones you can win (see also the 1991 Iraq/Kuwait pushover, also not uncoincidentally about oil), not this Iraq or Afghanistan nonsense.

Peace Talks

If you Google the phrase, you get, for example, the following list of combatants/opponents:

Israel v Fatah/Hamas

Afghanistan v Pakistan/Taliban

Colombia v FARC

Ukraine v Russian separatists

Now, we now that these talks are doomed to failure, as the parties will never agree with each other.

But what we ought to try at least, is invite all eight parties to Geneva and choose random pairs to hold talks (like the World Cup draw).

So the Israeli negotiating team ends up sitting down with FARC; Russian separatists go face to face with Colombia; Ukraine meets up with Fatah/Hamas, and so on.

They can have a gay old chat with each other, have a good moan about respective grievances and problems, their aims and goals but will agree they have no actual differences.

So FARC agrees that it will not try to overthrow the Israeli state and Israel agrees that it will not interfere in the Central American drug trafficking and kidnapping business etc, they sign a mutual non-agression and free trade pact and become best mates.

After the first round, lots are drawn again until every team has negotiated with six other teams, each time shaking hands and getting on famously.

In the final round, a few days later once everybody is nice and relaxed and in a conciliatory mood, negotiating teams sit down with their original opponents.

With a bit of luck, in the final round, they'll be so caught up in the mood that they will actually kiss, compromise and make up.

"Loving This, Admit Israel And Hamas"

From The Daily Mash, six years ago (but just as valid sixty years ago and will probably still be relevant in sixty years' time):

ISRAEL and Hamas last night admitted the latest wave of deadly violence was one of the best they had seen in years.

As the international community condemned Palestinian rocket attacks against southern Israel and the corresponding Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip, both sides agreed it was ‘more fun than a barrel of heavily-armed suicide monkeys’.

Israeli prime minister ... said: “You’ve got to hand it to Hamas, they are the dog’s bollocks when it comes to unrelentingly insane terrorist opponents..."

The identity parade must have been fun...

The Daily Mail has finally picked up on the cute Israeli girl soldiers meme:

Dressed only in their underwear and provocatively holding weapons for the camera, they appear to be having a great time posing for photographs in their barracks room.

But four Israeli female soldiers have now been disciplined by the country's military for their 'unbecoming behaviour' after the raunchy pictures were posted on Facebook.

The images, published on Israeli news website Walla, showed the soldiers removing their fatigues to expose their underwear and backsides.

Now, faced with a photo like this, how are you going to track down the suspects..?

"Gaza: Ceasefire between Hamas and Israel holds for over an hour"

From The Metro:

At least three rockets were fired into Israel after the truce came into effect an hour ago, Israel said, but two were intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system and a third landed in uninhabited territory. No missiles have been reported for over half an hour, however, which by their standards counts as a long and stable peace.

Last night Palestinians celebrated the 'victory' over Israel: "Allahu akbar, [God is greatest], dear people of Gaza you won," mosque loudspeakers in Gaza blared last night. "You have broken the arrogance of the Jews. We have crushed them like spiders. Will the last Zionist oppressor to leave please turn out the lights."

"These people made this victory by their patience, by the blood of our people,' said Hamas spokesman Ihab Hussein.

As this afternoon's lull in the fighting dragged on, hopes were high that it might break the record set by the legendary "Weekend Peace" which lasted for over twelve hours in February 2005.

Further attempts by Hamas leaders to draw parallels between the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and the Nazi crushing of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 were deemed inadmissible under Godwin's Law. "The Jewish inhabitants of Warsaw had all been murdered by then anyway," said the Israeli Defence Force spokesman, "So the intended irony falls flat on its Arab arse."

"Gazza ceasefire collapses"

From The Daily Mail:

Egypt's prime minister rushed to the aid of the troubled former England striker today in the midst of an Israeli offensive, calling the Israeli attacks 'a blatant aggression against humanity.'

In the first possible break in the escalating conflict, Israel had announced it would suspend military operations against the erstwhile Kettering Town manager during Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil's arrival in the then recovering alcoholic's enclave.

But as rockets blasted through the dawn sky, it was clear that promises of a three-hour ceasefire between Israel and Gazza had failed. Rockets fired from Newcastle United's most famous number eight's back window hit several sites in southern Israel so the Israeli air force responded with an attack on the now relapsed alcoholic's house, a source said.

But Israel's military strongly denied carrying out any attacks from the time Kandil entered the divorced father of one's home, and accused him of violating the three-hour deal.

"Israel has not attacked Gazza for the past two hours," a spokesman said.

"Even though about 50 rockets have fallen in Israel over the past two hours, we chose not to attack Gazza's dwelling due to the visit of the Egyptian prime minister. He is lying and reporting otherwise," the army said in a Twitter message.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil visited the 45-year old to bring him a can of lager, some chicken and a fishing rod after two days of relentless attacks by Israeli warplanes determined to end the rocket fire at Israel. Kandil was greeted by the convicted drink-driver, who was making his first public appearance since his trial at Newcastle Magistrate's Court in 2010.

Short List

Former Middle Eastern leaders in a coma.

[Syrian] Conflict Intensifies As Blah Blah Blah, Etc. Etc.

From The Onion, 26 April 2007 [as updated]:

MIDDLE EAST — With the [Syrian civl] war in its [twelfth month] and conflict between Israel and the rest of the region continuing unabated for more than half a century, intelligence sources are warning that a new wave of violence in the Middle East may soon blah blah blah, etc. etc., you know the rest.

"Tensions in the region are extremely high," said US Ambassador to [Syria] Ryan Crocker, who added the same old same old while answering reporters' questions. "We're disappointed by the events of the last few months, but we're confident that we're about to [yakety yakety yak]."

The UN has issued a strongly worded whatever denouncing someone or something presumably having to do with the vicious explosive things that raged across this, or shattered the predawn calm of that, or ripped suddenly through the other, killing umpteen innocent civilians in a Jerusalem bus or Beirut discotheque or Fallujah mosque or whatever it was this time.

In the aftermath of a whole series of incidents, there have also been troubling reports of just fill in the blanks. Middle East experts say the still somehow worsening situation has inflamed age-old sectarian tensions between the Sunnis, Shiites, Semites, Kurds, Turks, Saudis, Persians, Wahhabis, radicals, extremists, Baathists, mullahs, clerics, et al, which is likely to lead to more gurgle-gurgle over the coming weeks and months.

Recharging electric cars

They showed a "new" episode of Top Gear yesterday, which presumably means it's only the third repeat, in which they road tested some electric cars. They said that the cars are actually quite OK to drive, but their range is less than 100 miles and then you have to plug them in to recharge the battery, which takes about 12 hours.

It strikes me that the manufacturers could get round this problem by having their own "filling stations" dotted around the country, where they hire out their own pre-charged batteries. So you turn up, whip out your flat battery and exchange it for a charged one and pay your £10 or however much they want to charge to be competitive with petrol, which can't be too difficult, as there's no petrol duty on electricity.* A bit like with the Calor Gas bottles. And just about any shop could be a "filling station", all it needs is a spare plug or three.

* If there were a duty like petrol duty on electricity used to charge car batteries, we'd probably find that electric cars are woefully uneconomic to run as well as being very expensive to buy. Neither are they "zero-emission" in the first place, unless they are only charged with nuclear or wind generated electricity. But these are secondary issues.
------------------------
UPDATE: Richard in the comments points out that the Israelis are already doing this, the whole process takes two or three minutes:

The swords of a thousand men

Unlikely Allies

From the Evening Standard:

Tower Hamlets council is threatening to take the Government to court if it refuses to ban a march by far-Right group the English Defence League. Leaders are warning of violence if the event goes ahead on September 3 and will seek a judicial review if Home Secretary Theresa May does not ban it..."

As we know, EDL marchers tend to be very well behaved on the whole, the violence comes from the Islamists and deluded lefties who attack them.

From the BBC:

Protesters have disrupted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra's BBC Proms concert at London's Royal Albert Hall... The Palestine Solidarity Campaign had earlier called on people to boycott the concert and urged the BBC to cancel it. In a statement published on its website ahead of the Proms, the pro-Palestinian group claimed the IPO showed "complicity in whitewashing Israel's persistent violations of international law and human rights".

So it's the same lot attacking an Israeli orchestra as it is attacking the English Defence League.

Here's a thought: if the EDL are ever allowed to hold a rally, wouldn't it be fun if they invited along an Israeli orchestra to perform at the end, just to show a bit of solidarity? We can get the people from Rye Playland to do the security.

A better class of rioter

From yesterday's FT:

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, on Sunday named a cabinet-level panel to address the demands of demonstrators who had hours earlier taken part in the country’s biggest-ever protest focused on social and economic issues to pressure the government to lower the high cost of living...

Demands by the protesters, many of them secular and in their 20s and 30s, include increased building of affordable housing and a reduction of the 16 per cent sales tax.

If the Israeli government had any nous, they could kill two birds with one stone here - if they built a load of state-owned housing and rented it to their young people, they would be able to reduce or eliminate the sales tax because they'd have a new source of revenue - the rental income from the housing.

A bit of a shame really.

It looks like the Egyptian President is going to throw in the towel.

Up until now, I had lived in the vague hope that a former Israeli PM would make a comeback, and the current US President would get them to sign up some more Camp David Peace Accords.

UPDATE. According to the news, he has changed his mind and is hanging on. He got a barracking from the crowd and to prevent violence escalating, he has recalled the Army to their barracks.

No sense of perspective

It appears that cancelling concerts in Israel is the new fad among self-respecting pop stars.

OK, I am the first to admit that the way the Israelis stormed that ship was a bit of a PR-disaster, but these same pop stars are happy to play in other countries who have been involved in all sorts of human rights abuses and unnecessary deaths, at home or abroad (I'd include any country involved in the occupation of Iraq or Afgh, for a start; as well as most Arab or African countries, PR China etc etc).

Fun statistic of the day: Gaza Strip - population in 1950 = 240,000; population in 2010 = approx. 1,400,000.

Balanced coverage of the Middle East?

Over at ShareCrazy.