Clipmarks | Kore7's 'israel' clips

Lebanon War Probe Accuses Olmert of 'Severe Failure'

Tue, 01 May 2007 02:43:20 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: The first part of the official, government-appointed report is in and already the results are scathing. This is what the face of governmental accountability looks like. Better late than never, America will go through the same process of political introspection and repair as it goes forward. The inevitability of accountability is what allows a true democracy to survive almost anything.

"Some of the declared goals of the war were not clear and could not be achieved, and in part were not achievable by the authorized modes of military action," the report said.

Clip Source: haaretz.com

The prime minister, the report said, "bears supreme and comprehensive responsibility for the decisions of 'his' government and the operations of the army."

"The prime minister made up his mind hastily, despite the fact that no detailed military plan was submitted to him and without asking for one," the report said. "He made his decision without systematic consultation with others, especially outside the IDF, despite not having experience in external-political and military affairs."

Olmert was also censured for failing to "adapt his plans once it became clear that the assumptions and expectations of Israel's actions were not realistic and were not materializing."

"All of these," the report said, "add up to a serious failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence."

Tags: lebanon, israel, olmert, war, probe, winograd, military, accountability, politics, government

Rabbi Panel Approves Same-Sex Ceremonies

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 01:39:03 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: A big news day for gay rights.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Rabbi Panel Approves Same-Sex Ceremonies

NEW YORK, Dec. 6 -- A panel of rabbis opened the way Wednesday to allow same-sex commitment ceremonies and the ordination of gays within Conservative Judaism, which occupies a difficult middle ground between orthodoxy and liberalism in American Judaism.

The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards committee accepted three teshuvot, or answers, to the question of whether Jewish law permits homosexual sex. Two of the answers uphold the status quo, which forbids homosexuality. But one of them allows ordination of gay men and lesbians and same-sex ceremonies while maintaining a ban on anal sex.

Four of the committee's 25 members resigned in protest of the decision.

It takes the votes of just six of the panel's 25 members to declare an answer to be valid -- meaning that it is a well-founded interpretation of Jewish law, not that it is the only legitimate interpretation. As Wednesday's vote made clear, it is possible to approve contradictory answers.

The paper that allows for the ordination of gays and performance of same sex ceremonies was written by three rabbis -- Elliot Dorff, of Los Angeles; Daniel Nevins, of Farmington Hills, Mich.; and Avram Reisner, of Baltimore.

There are four main Conservative Jewish seminaries. One of them, the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, is expected to begin ordaining gays in the near future. The movement's flagship seminary, the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, is likely to take more time. Its new chancellor Arnold Eisen, has said he personally favors the change, but will allow the entire faculty to debate and vote on a recommendation. Two other seminaries, in Israel and Argentina, are more traditional in their outlook and may adopt the change slowly, if at all.

Tags: rabbi, rabbis, jew, judaism, religion, same-sex, homosexual, gay marriage, gay, rights, ceremony, law

Ten Ways to Make Sure That Peace Stays Dead

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:41:24 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Too many people on each side see the other as wholly culpable. Too many people on each side see themselves as wholly innocent, wholly victimized, ill-served by the well-meaning, abandoned by former allies, betrayed by the media, misunderstood by people who should know better, forgotten by the world.

Too many people on each side see only the suffering that has been caused them. Too many people have learned to wall themselves off from the suffering that they have caused.

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

Ten ways to make sure that peace stays dead

By Bradley Burston

1. There is only one side to any story. My side.

2. The people on the other side, children included, are undeserving of sympathy.

3. Even the maimed and the dead on the other side are undeserving of sympathy.

4. The term massacre may only be used to describe casualties on my side.

5. The automatic fire, bombing, shelling or other lethal action taken by my side are acts of self-defense. If there are fatalities as a result of fire by my side, whether intentional or incidental, they deserved to die.

6. The concept of drawing comparisons of moral equivalency or mutual responsibility for violence is, in all cases, obscene, disgraceful, artificial, mendacious.

All political, military, social and religious modalities can be reduced to pure victims and pure villains, which is to say, Us and Them, which is to say, Us and animals/murderers/mass-murderers/racist genocidalists/Nazis/Hitler.

Option 7A: The goal of the left, the center, this newspaper, its writers, even some of its readers, is the destruction of the State of Israel.

Option 7B: The destruction of Israel is a worthwhile goal.

8. If I am a pro-Israel extremist, responding to a pro-Israel moderate, I should attack and dismiss the writer as a whiner, a crybaby, a defeatist, a moron, a wimp, an imbecile, a self-hater, an extreme leftist, naïve, brainwashed, a pipe-dreamer, duped by the pro-Arab bias of the mass media, a traitor.

9. If I am a pro-Palestinian extremist, responding to a pro-Palestinian moderate, I should immediately dismiss the writer as a sell-out, a fool, misguided, an Uncle Tom, unaware of the real facts, duped by a the pro-Israel bias of the mass media, a traitor.

10. The depth of my conviction, that is, the degree of my extremism, is directly proportional to the distance from my home to the Holy Land. The farther away, the more foaming-at-the-mouth my fanaticism.

Tags: israel, palestine, palestinians, israelis, middle east, war, terrorism, peace, list, suffering, victimization, vengeance, revenge, compromise, enemy, sympathy, fanatacism, extremism, dead, politics

High Court Rules Israel Must Recognize Gay Marriages

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 04:23:25 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Incredible!

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

Last update - 22:33 21/11/2006

In a precedent-setting ruling, the High Court of Justice on Tuesday ruled that five gay couples wedded outside of Israel can be registered as married couples.

A sweeping majority of six justices to one ruled that the civil marriages of five gay couples obtained in Toronto, Canada, can appear as married on the population registry.

The gay petitioners sought to force the state to give equal recognition to common law marriages of heterosexual couples to those of gay marriages, which can be performed in certain countries.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel that filed the petition on the behalf of the couples, argued before the court that the Interior Ministry's refusal to register them as married compromises their right to equality and to hold family life, and is based on "homophobe social perceptions."

The court rejected the position of the State Attorney, that states recognizing single-sex marriages cannot expect Israel to recognize such nuptial agreements drawn in these countries.

The state told the High Court that "Israel lacks the appropriate legal framework for such marriages," and therefore it cannot register them.

After the ruling was issued, the Civil Rights Association said it is "all the more important in the wake of the [recent] public turmoil stirred by the gay pride parade in Jerusalem."

Itay Pinkas, a prominent member of the gay community who married his partner in Canada said in response: "This is an historical day for the [gay] community and for democracy. This is our real pride parade. We will keep battling for full equality in other areas."

Tags: israel, gay, gay marriage, homosexuality, marriage, civil rights, court, high court, jewish, state

American Conservative Magazine: GOP Must Go

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:05:26 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

There may be little Americans can do to atone for this presidency, which will stain our country’s reputation for a long time. But the process of recovering our good name must begin somewhere, and the logical place is in the voting booth this Nov. 7. If we are fortunate, we can produce a result that is seen—in Washington, in Peoria, and in world capitals from Prague to Kuala Lumpur—as a repudiation of George W. Bush and the war of aggression he launched against Iraq.

Clip Source: www.amconmag.com

November 20, 2006 Issue

GOP Must Go

It should surprise few readers that we think a vote that is seen—in America and the world at large—as a decisive “No” vote on the Bush presidency is the best outcome. We need not dwell on George W. Bush’s failed effort to jam a poorly disguised amnesty for illegal aliens through Congress or the assaults on the Constitution carried out under the pretext of fighting terrorism or his administration’s endorsement of torture. Faced on Sept. 11, 2001 with a great challenge, President Bush made little effort to understand who had attacked us and why—thus ignoring the prerequisite for crafting an effective response. He seemingly did not want to find out, and he had staffed his national-security team with people who either did not want to know or were committed to a prefabricated answer.

As a consequence, he rushed America into a war against Iraq, a war we are now losing and cannot win, one that has done far more to strengthen Islamist terrorists than anything they could possibly have done for themselves. Bush’s decision to seize Iraq will almost surely leave behind a broken state divided into warring ethnic enclaves, with hundreds of thousands killed and maimed and thousands more thirsting for revenge against the country that crossed the ocean to attack them. The invasion failed at every level: if securing Israel was part of the administration’s calculation—as the record suggests it was for several of his top aides—the result is also clear: the strengthening of Iran’s hand in the Persian Gulf, with a reach up to Israel’s northern border, and the elimination of the most powerful Arab state that might stem Iranian regional hegemony.

The war will continue as long as Bush is in office, for no other reason than the feckless president can’t face the embarrassment of admitting defeat. The chain of events is not complete: Bush, having learned little from his mistakes, may yet seek to embroil America in new wars against Iran and Syria.

Tags: american, conservative, conservatives, gop, bush, bush administration, war, iraq, policy, washington, election, campaign, midterm, vote, voters, referendum, principles, conservatism

Remember: Saddam Was Our Man

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 17:49:26 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: NY Times OpEd from March 14, 2003.

The United States also sent arms to the new regime, weapons later used against the same Kurdish insurgents the United States had backed against Kassem and then abandoned. Soon, Western corporations like Mobil, Bechtel and British Petroleum were doing business with Baghdad -- for American firms, their first major involvement in Iraq.

This history is known to many in the Middle East and Europe, though few Americans are acquainted with it, much less understand it. Yet these interventions help explain why United States policy is viewed with some cynicism abroad. George W. Bush is not the first American president to seek regime change in Iraq. Mr. Bush and his advisers are following a familiar pattern.

Clip Source: readthese.blogspot.com

March 14, 2003, Friday

A Tyrant 40 Years in the Making

SEATTLE -- On the brink of war, both supporters and critics of United States policy on Iraq agree on the origins, at least, of the haunted relations that have brought us to this pass: America's dealings with Saddam Hussein, justifiable or not, began some two decades ago with its shadowy, expedient support of his regime in the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980's.

Both sides are mistaken. Washington's policy traces an even longer, more shrouded and fateful history. Forty years ago, the Central Intelligence Agency, under President John F. Kennedy, conducted its own regime change in Baghdad, carried out in collaboration with Saddam Hussein.

In 1963 Britain and Israel backed American intervention in Iraq, while other United States allies -- chiefly France and Germany -- resisted. But without significant opposition within the government, Kennedy, like President Bush today, pressed on. In Cairo, Damascus, Tehran and Baghdad, American agents marshaled opponents of the Iraqi regime. Washington set up a base of operations in Kuwait, intercepting Iraqi communications and radioing orders to rebels. The United States armed Kurdish insurgents. The C.I.A.'s ''Health Alteration Committee,'' as it was tactfully called, sent Kassem a monogrammed, poisoned handkerchief, though the potentially lethal gift either failed to work or never reached its victim.

As its instrument the C.I.A. had chosen the authoritarian and anti-Communist Baath Party, in 1963 still a relatively small political faction influential in the Iraqi Army. According to the former Baathist leader Hani Fkaiki, among party members colluding with the C.I.A. in 1962 and 1963 was Saddam Hussein, then a 25-year-old who had fled to Cairo after taking part in a failed assassination of Kassem in 1958.

Tags: saddam, hussein, saddam hussein, history, iraq, coup, cia, usa, washington, britain, israel, kassem, baathist, kurds, busness, foreign policy, arms, regime, dictator, middle east

Israeli President Katsav to be indicted for raping two women?

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 02:51:08 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: In an attempt to thwart the accusations made at him, President Katsav tried to seek charges of blackmail against the alleged victim, which appeared to backfire as the publicity unleashed many new allegations from other women:

Altogether, there appears to be sufficient evidence to indict Katsav for sexual offenses involving five women. Additional complainants are expected to be summoned to testify against him at his trial to reinforce the argument that Katsav had a specific modus operandi in relation to women.

And if that wasn't enough,

Police have also found sufficient evidence to indict Katsav on charges of illegal wiretapping

and

Katsav is also suspected of obstructing justice and harassing a witness.

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

Tue., October 17, 2006 Tishrei 25, 5767

By Yuval Yoaz and Jonathan Lis

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz is expected to decided within two to three weeks to indict President Moshe Katsav for sexual offenses and other crimes, including personal corruption. The expected charges include an allegation that has not yet been publicized: using state funds to buy personal gifts.

Although the actual indictment is not expected for a few more months, police and prosecution officials said yesterday that they consider an indictment to be a fait accompli.

A report summarizing the police inquiry, which was handed to Mazuz and State Prosecutor Eran Shendar yesterday, indicates that in addition to the three investigations of Katsav's alleged misconduct that have already been reported - regarding sexual offenses, improper clemency procedures and illegal wiretapping - the president is also suspected of having dipped into state funds for several years to pay for dozens of personal gifts to associates that were worth hundreds of shekels each.

The bulk of the evidence against Katsav relates to the sexual offenses of which he is accused. Police have found evidence that Katsav raped two women: the principal complainant, a former President's Residence employee identified only as A., and another woman, also identified as A., who worked under Katsav while he was minister of tourism. Police have also found significant evidence linking Katsav to forcible indecent acts, nonconsensual indecent acts and sexual harassment.

Altogether, there appears to be sufficient evidence to indict Katsav for sexual offenses involving five women. Additional complainants are expected to be summoned to testify against him at his trial to reinforce the argument that Katsav had a specific modus operandi in relation to women.

Tags: israel, katsav, moshe katsav, president, scandal, rape, indictment, wiretapping, harassment, politics, corruption

When Not Seeing Is Believing

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 03:09:56 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Human perfection. Whether we like it or not. Justice, peace and virtue. That concept of the beneficent, omnipotent will of God and the need to always submit to it, whether we like it or not, is not new. It has been present in varying degrees throughout history in all three great monotheisms—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—from their very origins. And with it has come the utter certainty of those who say they have seen the face of God or have surrendered themselves to his power or have achieved the complete spiritual repose promised by the Books of all three faiths: the Torah, the Gospels, the Koran. That is where the smile comes from.

(Andrew Sullivan. Time Magazine, Oct. 2, 2006.)

Clip Source: www.time.com

Posted Monday, Oct. 2, 2006
Something about the visit to the U.N. by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refuses to leave my mind. It wasn't his obvious intention to pursue nuclear technology and weaponry. It wasn't his denial of the Holocaust or even his eager anticipation of Armageddon. It was something else entirely. It was his smile. In every interview, confronting every loaded question, his eyes seemed calm, his expression at ease, his face at peace. He seemed utterly serene.

What is the source of his extraordinary calm? Yes, he's in a relatively good place right now, with his Hizballah proxies basking in a military draw with Israel. Yes, the U.S. is bogged down in a brutal war in Iraq. But Ahmadinejad is still unpopular at home, the Iranian economy is battered, and his major foes, Israel and the U.S., far outgun him--for now.

So let me submit that he is smiling and serene not because he is crazy. He is smiling gently because for him, the most perplexing and troubling questions we all face every day have already been answered. He has placed his trust in the arms of God. Just because it isn't the God that many of us believe in does not detract from the sincerity or power of his faith. It is a faith that is real, all too real--gripping billions across the Muslim world in a new wave of fervor and fanaticism. All worries are past him, all anxiety, all stress. "Peoples, driven by their divine nature, intrinsically seek good, virtue, perfection and beauty," Ahmadinejad said at the U.N. "Relying on our peoples, we can take giant steps towards reform and pave the road for human perfection. Whether we like it or not, justice, peace and virtue will sooner or later prevail in the world with the will of Almighty God."

Tags: religion, faith, certainty, calm, serenity, politics, ahmadinejad, islam, christianity, judaism, andrew sullivan

The Seductive Logic of Exterminationism

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:07:18 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

The second tendency stemming from dwelling so much on Hitler's exterminationist logic is to begin to absorb it and to start thinking like Hitler himself, to say to oneself:

Well, while it wouldn't do to come out and quite say it publicly, it's simple logic that if we can't democratize the Muslims (which looks increasingly implausible), we'd better do unto them before they do unto us: exterminate them.

That way of thought leads toward a war of nuclear genocide that would be as unnecessary as it is criminal.

Clip Source: isteve.blogspot.com

Unfortunately, contemporary U.S. intellectuals have become ever more obsessed with Hitler and his exterminationist logic, even as the years since Hitler's demise have lengthened. Kevin Michael Grace remarked to me once that if space aliens had been hiding in the asteroid belt, monitoring our television broadcasts for the last ten years. the first thing they would say upon landing on Earth is "Take me to your Hitler," because the assumption that Hitler is the most important man in the world today, rather than a loser who has been dead for 61 years, would be the natural outcome of watching too much television.

All this obsessing over Hitler's exterminationist logic leads to two tendencies among more than a few modern American thinkers. The first is to see the threat of exterminationism where it doesn't exist. Muslims, for all their obnoxiousness, are simply too incompetent to be an existential threat to America.

Just because it says to wage holy war in the Koran doesn't mean Muslims would or could wage holy war in a broadly effective fashion upon America (unless we let them), just as Christians mostly don't give away to the poor all you own and come follow Me. (I doubt if Muslims are much of an existential threat to Israel, either, but the tendency among more than a few American intellectuals to get Israel confused with America exacerbates this tendency.)

Tags: logic, exterminationism, war, warfare, west, middle east, history, hitler, steve sailer

The Islamic Way of War - Andrew J. Bacevich (The American Conservative)

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 23:19:24 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

[T]the sun has set on the age of unquestioned Western military dominance. Bluntly, the East has solved the riddle of the Western Way of War. In Baghdad and in Anbar Province as at various points on Israel’s troubled perimeter, the message is clear: methods that once could be counted on to deliver swift decision no longer work.

Clip Source: www.amconmag.com

The American Conservative

September 11, 2006 Issue

Muslims have stopped fighting on Western terms—and have started winning.

by Andrew J. Bacevich

What are the implications of this new Islamic Way of War? While substantial, they fall well short of being apocalyptic. As Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has correctly—if perhaps a trifle defensively—observed, “Our enemy knows they cannot defeat us in battle.” Neither the Muslim world nor certainly the Arab world poses what some like to refer to as “an existential threat” to the United States. Despite overheated claims that the so-called Islamic fascists pose a danger greater than Hitler ever did, the United States is not going to be overrun, even should the forces of al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi insurgents, and Shi’ite militias along with Syria and Iran all combine into a unified anti-Crusader coalition. Although Israelis for historical reasons are inclined to believe otherwise, the proximate threat to Israel itself is only marginally greater. Although neither Israel nor the United States can guarantee its citizens “perfect security”—what nation can?—both enjoy ample capabilities for self-defense.

Tags: islam, war, israel, idf, insurgents, iran, iraq, lebanon, middle east, usa, military, strategy

Not So Clean Break - Taki (American Conservative)

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 22:40:48 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

The Bush doctrine of creating democracy in the Middle East with bombs will go down in history as the cruelest and craziest ever. A war on terror, as Bush calls everything he doesn’t agree with, cannot be won by a democratically elected government acting like a terrorist organization. Killing civilians, especially children, is wrong.

Clip Source: www.amconmag.com

The American Conservative

September 11, 2006 Issue

by Taki

The truth is that even friends of Israel—and there are many—do not believe for a moment that Hezbollah, Syria, or Iran really threaten Israel’s existence. Only a propagandist like John Podhoretz—“we should have killed many more Sunnis age 15 to 35”—and his bloodthirsty ilk of neocons believe such rubbish, and being a betting man I’d bet the farm that even they don’t. Normal, decent, sophisticated countries that claim the moral high ground, as Israel does, do not kill thousands of civilians and destroy the infrastructure of their neighbors because three soldiers were kidnapped. It was a set-up from day one.

Tags: war, israel, lebanon, iran, iraq, syria, palestine, hezbollah, conservative, usa

War! What is it good for? (Less and less these days)

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 18:37:06 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Steve Sailer concludes:

Still, there will be plenty of men who will get very excited over every twist and turn in the Game of Nations, and bay for war to prevent any loss of the slightest advantage. As former war correspondent Fred Reed notes, after decades of following the sounds of guns it occurred to him that war, important as it seems at the time, is just something males do.

Clip Source: isteve.blogspot.com

War! What is it good for?

Perhaps not absolutely nothing yet, but less and less these days. Civil war will be around for a long time, but invasion and conquest looks less and less sensible, even from a completely amoral national cost-benefit calculus.

Back in the good old days of James K. Polk, starting a cross-border war for lebensraum, minerals, and strategic harbors, such as the Mexican-American War, could be highly profitable, especially, as in the case of Mexican California, when the target was ridiculously underpopulated.

In the 21st Century, however, there just aren't that many such worthwhile targets laying around. Siberia, perhaps, but not too much else.

Minerals, other than oil, just aren't that important economically anymore. And we're spending 50% more on occupying Iraq each year than all the whole country's current oil production is worth at $70 per barrel even if we stole every drop.

Also, most of the great empires are largely broken up. Most countries are ruled by somebody from, more or less, their own continent and race. Israel is seen as a European intrusion into the Middle East, so it's highly unpopular with its neighbors, but most of the other extra-continental outposts of white rule are gone, like Rhodesia and South Africa, or are dominant, like Canada and Australia.

Tags: war, cost, benefits, history, invasion, conquest, empires, nations, countries, politics, foreign policy, economics

Israel gives up on disarming Hizbullah

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 16:47:44 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Michael Totten adds:

Those inside and outside Israel who believed disarming Hezbollah by force was possible in a short time frame were supremely delusional. It’s not 1967 anymore, when Israel could defeat three Arab armies in six days. Hezbollah is a guerilla army, as well as a terrorist army, and assymetrical warfare is hard. Look at how much longer it is taking the US to put down a Baathist insurgency in Iraq compared with the Baathist army in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was in power.

Clip Source: www.jpost.com

Israel has essentially given up hope of Hizbullah being disarmed, and instead is now concentrating on ensuring that an arms embargo called for in UN Security Council resolution 1701 be implemented, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Furthermore, senior Israeli officials have made it clear in recent days during talks with foreign governments that Israel realizes a Hizbullah presence south of the Litani River is unavoidable, if for no other reason than because the organization is so well rooted there that the only way to get rid of Hizbullah would be to evacuate the entire region.

What Israel does expect, however, is that the Lebanese Army and the international force that will deploy there ensure that Hizbullah doesn't have offensive weaponry to attack Israel, and that if they do try to attack, there will be someone there to stop them.

Tags: israel, hezbollah, lebanon, idf, war, peace, disarm, weapons, arms, middle east

Majority of Israelis 'want Olmert to go'

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 18:01:05 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

The Israeli government came under increased pressure today with the publication of a newspaper poll showing that for the first time a majority want Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign over perceived failings in his handling of the war with Hizbullah.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

A poll in the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper showed 63% want Mr Olmert to go. The defence minister, Amir Peretz, appears even more vulnerable with 74% calling for his resignation, while 54% want the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, to resign as well.

The poll reflects growing disillusionment within Israeli society about the 34-day conflict with Hizbullah and the fact that the country emerged without any clear victory over the Lebanese militia. The two Israeli soldiers whose capture triggered the conflict are still not free. The war claimed the lives of more than 1,100 people in Lebanon, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

A total of 74% of those polled rated Mr Olmert's war-time performance as "not good".

"Ladies and gentleman: an upheaval," the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper wrote in a report about its poll. "Upheaval is not the word. Earthquake would be more suitable to describe the condition of the Olmert government 110 days after its term of office began."

Tags: israel, israeli, olmert, ehud olmert, peretz, halutz, politics, poll, war, lebanon, middle east

Nicole Kidman: Against terrorism

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 03:26:47 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: You heard it here first.

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

The actress, joined by 84 other high-profile Hollywood stars, directors, studio bosses and media moguls, has taken out a powerfully-worded full page advertisement in today's Los Angeles Times newspaper.

It specifically targets "terrorist organisations" such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

"We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas," the ad reads.

"If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die.

A who's who of Hollywood heavyweights joined Kidman on the ad.

The actors listed included: Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton and William Hurt.

Directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi also signed their names.

Other Hollywood powerplayers supporting the ad included Sumner Redstone, the chairman and majority owner of Paramount Pictures, and billionaire mogul, Haim Saban.

Tags: kidman, nicole kidman, hollywood, terrorism, hamas, hezbollah, israel, lebanon, stars, la