Sunday, December 09, 2012

Egypt - Morsy's Referendum - UPDATE


- Last UPDATE for Referendum Results on December 18 -


مصر: جبهة الانقاذ الوطني ترفض الاستفتاء على الدستور

Egypt: The Front for National Salvation Rejects
the Referendum on a Constitution.



Yesterday, December 8, 2012, the English channel of Al-Jazeera came with news of Egypt's president Morsy withdrawing his decrees that should have given him additional powers and the decision to put his own constitutional draft to public vote. Oppositional groups are refusing their support of what can be seen as a referendum on the disputed constitutional decrees.

Today, December 9, that information was confirmed by a report from the Arabic service of BBC, London (above screenshot from their website).

Here now two comments from political groups that voiced their protest against Morsy during last days' violent uprisings in the streets of Cairo. Both had been quoted by the Arabic service of Al-Jazeera the day before:


جبهة الإنقاذ الوطني المعارضة تعقد اليوم اجتماعا لإعلان موقفها من الإعلان الدستوري

Today, the oppositional Front for National Salvation [is complicating] the [national] assembly's announcement of their position in the proclamation [of a constitution].


[The Front for National Salvation is no political party but a national alliance founded by presidential candidate Al-Baradei in order to organize a widespread opposition against Morsy's decrees that would have promoted the president's personal powers.]

رئيس حزب الوسط: الإعلان الجديد تضمن حلولا لكل المعضلات التي ثار جدل بشائنها

The president of the Al-Wasat party says the new proclamation assures [its] occurrence in all difficulties that are [spreading] dispute with their insulting [character].


[The Al-Wasat party is a more liberal group that broke away from the Muslim Brotherhood. It proclaims a moderate Islamism. The "new proclamation" mentioned in the above text is referring to a constitutional draft proclamation recently presented by Egypt's president Morsy.]



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News from the First Round of the Referendum
Released on December 16 by Al-Jazeera :


دعوات للإعادة بعد تفوق "نعم" باستفتاء مصر

Headline: Calls for a repetition [i.e. of voting] after predominance of "yes" [votes] in the Egyptian referendum.

أظهرت النتائج الأولية من المرحلة الأولى للاستفتاء على الدستور المصري تأييد نحو 57% له و معارضة 43% وسط انقسام بين المؤيدين و المعارضين, و دعت منظمات حقوقية إلى إعادة المرحلة الأولى لما و صفته بخروق شابت العملية

Basic results from the first round of the referendum on Egypt's constitution are showing a 57% support [i.e. for president Morsy's constitutional draft] and a 43% opposition [dividing] supporters and opposers while juridical organizations are calling for a repetition of that first round and are denouncing "ruptures" that are corrupting the process.



Additional information from Al-Arabiya on December 16, 2012:



Headline: Egypt's opposition is calling for a repetition of polling in the referendum.

The above photo is showing the decisive figures of Egypt's opposition: Amr Moussa, Mohammad Al-Baradei and Hamdin Sabahi (right to left).

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Society news from Egypt by Al-Arabiya on December 17, 2012:

قالت الإعلامية منى الشاذلي, مساء اليوم الأحد عبر قناة "إم بي سي مصر", إنه تم القبض على الحارس الخاص لخيرت الشاطر,ـ نائب مرشد جماعة الإخوان المسلمين

On Sunday evening [i.e. December 16] the journalist Mona al-Shazly told on [TV] channel MBC Egypt being decided to seize as the "bodyguard for the benefits of sharing" a vice-councillor to the community of the Muslim Brotherhood.


[Editor's Note: Mona al-Shazly was a popular talk show host on Egypt's Dream 2 TV channel where she became known for her talk sessions with high-ranking politicians. Her new employer MBC Egypt is a brandnew channel owned by the Dubai-based group MBC (Middle East Broadcasting Center).]

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UPDATE for December 18 quoting Al-Jazeera, Arabic channel:



الجمعية التأسيسية لوضع الدستور في مصر تدعو البرادعي و موسى و صباحي للحوار يوم الجمعة القادم

The constitutional assembly, assigned to bring about the [new] constitution of Egypt, invited [Mohammad] al-Baradei, [Amr] Moussa and [Hamdin] Sabahi [to participate] in a dialogue to be held next Friday.

مساعد وزير العدل المصري ينفي إشراف أي شخص غير القضاة على المرحلة الأولى من الاستفتاء

The Egyptian vice-minister of justice refuses to supervise [anybody] not belonging to the jurisdiction during the first round of the referendum.


مؤشرات تصويت المصريين بالخارج تظهر تأييدا للدستور بنسبة 69% في نحو 30 دولة أبرزها دول الخليج

Egyptian [citizens] abroad registered for polling are showing a 69% support for the constitution in 30 countries, especially in the Gulf states.


Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Israel - Western Criticism and German Dilemma


News UPDATE for December 6 included.
Editor's POSTSCRIPT has been added on December 15 !




Yesterday, November 3, 2012, Al-Jazeera and other international media reported that Britain, France and Sweden have summoned Israel's ambassadors in order to voice their concerns over Israeli settlement plans. The United Kingdom announced that acual settlement plans would cast doubt over Israel's commitment to the peace process. Russia and Germany have also expressed their opposition to Israel's plans.

This comes shortly after the United Nations General Assembly passed a pro-Palestinian draft resolution with an overwhelming majority. Israel immediately announced the building of more settlements after UN voted on Palestine's new "state observer status", Israel's government saying it would carry on building in places of strategic interest. Plans to build on the area are known as "E1" and would divide the Westbank in two. Furthermore, Israel is withholding tax revenue that should go to the Palestinian authority.


In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Raanan Gissin (above), former senior advisor to Ariel Sharon, downplayed those Western statements as some kind of "constructive criticism from friends" rather than a slap into the face of Israel. Nevertheless the current proceedings are obviously expressing harsh criticism from an annoyed community of states that are fed up with turning a blind eye on Israeli policy towards their Semitic brethren in Ghaza and the Westbank.


Raanan Gissin - Faces

Something I remember from a collection of Jewish jokes :
A Jewish merchant is offering a miracle drug intended to improve brain functions. One customer is eager to buy it and test it on the spot. After some time he begins to argue: "100 € such tiny bottle, isn't that much too expensive ?". The Jew appeases his anger: "You see, it's already working !"

As to criticism from Germany there is something remarkable about it. Since 1949 when the German Federal Republic came into being, official politics of the GFR always acknowledged German responsibility when it came to the recompensation of Jews that had suffered from atrocities during the rule of the 3rd Reich. This included material and ideological support for Jews and for the state of Israel as well as a sincere treatment of related historic subjects in the education of Germany's youth (i.e. in schoolbooks and documentations). For the latter item I could serve as a witness. Even more, such politics was compatible with Germany's integration into a U.S. dominated Western alliance.

However, as years and decades went by, it became clear to many Germans of the following post-war generations that such "eternal friendship" with Israel had turned into a ceremonial support of each and every demand and claim from Israel. Yet an increasing number of new voices made themselves heard, telling us that Israel's founders had learnt much from our disreputable ancestors when they decided to erect their new dwellings on the ruins of those belonging to the original inhabitants of Palestine. And I learnt that even some prominent German Jews (namely Hannah Arendt) opposed the way Israel was to be established. Theodor Herzl and the co-founders of Zionism might have imagined the Holy Land to become a homeland for the Jewish nation. But for the more realistic Zionists it could have been a decent corner in South America as well. Now, after so many decades of fighting between Israel's army and furious Palestinians, even Germany is getting annoyed of Israel endangering the fragile status quo of its region which is even better than a devastating war.

First time that ordinary people in Germany noticed there was something wrong with German-Israeli relations was when German author Günther Grass, a laureate of the Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote his poem What Needs to be Said in which he referred to the delivery of German submarines to Israel.

Now, considering the special commitment of German chancellor Angela Merkel with regard to Israel's security, it needs to be said that she came from a totally different environment having been raised by a practising Christian family in the German Democratic Republic, that second German state which perished in 1989. In her life she must have seen one or another of those GDR produced films celebrating German Communist resistance during the 3rd Reich. From there it seemed that all of those concentration camps or ghettos had been filled with honest citizens opposing the Nazi regime, some of them bearing Jewish names but which might have been a mere coincidence. Only to remember the awarded DEFA production "Jakob the Liar". Any responsibility for the mass annihilation of Jews had been categorically rejected by GDR authorities who claimed to represent the "antifascist part of Germany". Maybe, Frau Merkel later felt obliged to correct that picture presented by the land of her origin and promptly fell into an Israeli trap when she declared "German resposibility for the existence of Israel" in her speech before the Knesseth. I doubt that any other high-ranking German politician would dare to make such kind of statement once again, at least not less than a year before Germany's general elections.

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Quotation from: Hannah Arendt and the Origins of Israelophobia

The great antitotalitarian thinker was no friend to the Jewish state.


"... Arendt predicted that even if the Jews won the war, they would degenerate into one of those small warrior tribes about whose possibilities and importance history has amply informed us since the days of Sparta. Their relations with world Jewry would become problematical, since their defense interests might clash at any moment with those of other countries where large numbers of Jews lived. Palestine Jewry would eventually separate itself from the larger body of world Jewry and in its isolation develop into an entirely new people. Thus it becomes plain that at this moment and under present circumstances a Jewish state can only be erected at the price of the Jewish homeland.

Arendt ended the piece by urging that it was “still not too late” to head off the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab sections and to prevent the declaration of a Jewish state. "

[Editor's Note: The above cited evaluation by Hannah Arendt can be dated back to 1948.]

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Leseempfehlung für deutsche Leser: Die jüdische Aktivistin Hannah Arendt in Stellungnahmen zu Palästina und Israel.

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Editor's Postscript on December 15, 2012:

On December 11, 2012, the English service of Al-Jazeera reported that Israeli soldiers raided offices of 3 Palestinian civil society organizations in Ramallah, site of the Palestinian administration for the partly occupied Westbank, confiscating and damaging equipment. Entering before dawn, troops broke into the offices of the Women's Union, the Palestinian NGO Network and Addameer, an advocate for Palestinians in Israeli jails. This came shortly after the United Nations' decision to grant a state observer status to Palestine which might enable Palestinian authorities to directly appeal to the international crime court while referring to alleged Israeli war crimes.

As to the "war of shadows" Israel is waging against its many enemies, a comprehensive documentation has been broadcast by German TV channel ZDF on December 14, 2012. That same documentation had already been broadcast before by another German channel (Phoenix) on September 19, 2012. From there, a broader German public could get an idea how Israeli security and the politicians behind them are dealing with anybody opposing their policies. ZDF also showed a report on what we know about Israel's nuclear arsenal and German arms export that needed German politicians to turn a blind eye on Israel's strategic goals.

The Meshaal Affair, September 1997:

Khaled Meshaal, up to now chief of Hamas organization that is now trying to govern the Gaza strip once fell victim to an assassination attempt. On his way from a parking lot to his office in Jordan's capital Amman he was attacked by two Mossad agents using some kind of poison. While Meshaal was near to death, the would-be assassins could be arrested. On hearing about the incident, King Hussein of Jordan made clear that both Mossad agents would be publicly hung if Meshaal died. It then took only hours that former Mossad chief, Danny Yatom, appeared in Amman to deliver the antidote. Meshaal fully recovered. Only some days ago, he arrived in the Gaza strip, for the first time in years, to celebrate the United Nations' decision of December 2012.




It's not my intention to take sides in that dirty war. However, there are aspects in it that need to be named. Many years ago, I became witness to an Intifada bombing when I spent some days in the town of Netanya. On my very first morning in Israel two heavy explosions rocked the town and devastated parts of the local market area. Later, lots of Israelis silently assembled around the bombing site and watched the police doing their work. I then noticed a small and rather shabby shop apparently selling photographic articles at the entrance of the market. It's tiny shop window was entirely filled with the animated dummy of a camera which attracted people to directly look into the fake camera lens that was focusssing the old market's center. If it was what I presumed, it didn't work to prevent the bombing.

Even nowadays, when sophisticated electronic device can be used to survey each and every corner of a densely populated area, any warning will usually come to late. And it must be added that there is no technique the enemy cannot apply as well. Only recently, the overall observation of a Dubai hotel and highly developed means of investigation applied by Dubai police finally convicted Mossad agents who had assassinated one of their targets in his hotel room. An incident that led to just another international scandal raising the question about practical or political benefit of such killing operations. Even though some experts might consider the assassination of nuclear scientists in Iran as a decisive matter, wars cannot be won by killing some learned "pawns".




News from Germany on December 6, 2012:

On Thursday, December 6, the German government decided to provide two military units operating the "Patriot" missile defense system for Turkey after a request from Ankara and NATO headquarters. Both systems are intended to secure the Turkish-Syrian border after impacts of Syrian artillery rockets on Turkish territory. Their installation will be accompanied by a deployment of up to 400 German troops. The Patriot subject has been discussed since November 2012 (screenshot below quoting the November 17 news).


Above picture:
Excerpt from a comprehensive Chinese news article reporting on Germany's December 6 decision at the same time as German News TV launches their short statement.




Guess who's searching for "implanted colonies"!



Thursday, November 29, 2012

Palestine - Up with the People


Latest UPDATE further down !

الأمم المتحدة تمنح فلسطين صفة "دولة مراقب"ـ



Palestine's president Abbas meeting with UN Secretary General
Ban Ki Moon in New York while trying to shore up UN support.


Today, about three hours from now, there will be a vote at the United Nations General Assembly that could bring a status change for the Palestinian territories. That vote is intended to recognise Palestine as a non-observer state, such boosting international recognition of West Bank, Ghaza Strip and East Jerusalem as the State of Palestine.

Even though, this can be regarded as a mere symbolic act that will not remove a single Israeli checkpoint, Palestine would then be able to join the International Criminal Court when it comes to sue Israel for its alleged war crimes. As expected, Israel and the U.S.A. are opposing a change in status for Palestinians. Furthermore, a U.S. aid package averaging $600 million per year could be at stake, together with $210 million in tax revenue that could be withheld by Israel.

Yet, this vote is being expected to pass in the General Assembly as opposition is restricted to a few UN members like the U.S.A., Israel, Britain and most probably Germany while France already declared its support of Palestine.

Editor's Comment:
Even though the act of promoting the people of Palestine might be a rather symbolic act, it should be considered that throughout human history similar symbolic gestures have triggered off important developments. In fact, many collective efforts and even wars have started from such symbolic events.

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UPDATE shortly before UN decision:


Standing ovations for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas after his speech before the United Nations General Assembly.

Only U.S., Israel and Germany known to obstruct the Palestinian bid.

France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Italy have pledged to endorse the Palestinian cause. Britain ready for conditioned support of Palestine.


Israel's ambassador to the United Nations called Palestine an "Iranian terrorist camp". Conjuring up historic events that served the national interest of Israel, he played down the importance of an expected UN decision in favour of Palestine. One international observer noticed Israel's ambassador not mentioning the fact that Israel once as well came into being as a recognised independent state on behalf of a United Nations' decision.

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UPDATE after UN decision:

The pro-Palestinian draft resolution passed in favour of Palestine:

صوتت 138 دولة لصالح القرار و9 ضده وامتنعت 41 دولة
عن التصويت


138 nations voted pro, 9 nations voted no, 41 nations abstained.


After the vote: Israel's ambassador to the UN (above) and celebrating Palestinians in Ramallah (below).




The following day, November 30, German media and German national TV said in their regular news program "Palestine received observer status" which could easily be mixed up with a so-called "non-state observer status" that was held by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) since 1974. Indeed, the Palestinian territories are now enjoying what is called an "observer state status" which gives them some additional rights and fixes the Palestinians' claim of presenting themselves to the international community as an independent state, even though partly occupied by Israel.

Al-Jazeera named it "non-observer status" while صفة دولة مراقب, the Arabic expression used by Al-Arabiya, is near to "status of a controlling or supervising state" which includes another aspect of the word "observer".

According to different German media, Germany finally decided to abstain from vote after earlier reports of Germany being decided to vote against the pro-Palestinian draft.

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

China's Aircraft Carrier - Latest News




On November 26, Chinese and Western media reported the first flight operation on board of China's brandnew aircraft carrier "Liaoning". That event was troubled by the sudden death of the responsible commander of seaborne fighter jets, Luo Yang, who had died the day before from a heart attack at the age of 51.

According to Chinese sources, the final configuration of the "Liaoning" should comprise 50 fighter jets and helicopters:

26 dual-engine Chinese fighter jets Qian-15 ( also known as C-15 or Shenyang J-15 and purportedly comparable to U.S. F-18 jets).
20 helicopters equipped for anti-submarine combat.
4 helicopters used as an early-warning system.

According to Western sources, the "Liaoning" will not be fully operational before 2013. While that carrier has been constructed on the hull of an abandoned Soviet carrier, the "Varyag", same Western sources are saying that another Chinese aircraft carrier should already be in construction, being entirely built on Chinese parts.

Further information can be found on another blogspot of mine dealing with the inauguration of China's first aircraft carrier.

The below poster reveals detailed technical data. Carrier "Liaoning" should therefore be smaller in size than U.S. Nimitz-class carriers which make up as the ultimate and most sophisticated "dinosaurs" of the seas:



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The Impact of Middle Eastern Developments on
the Distribution of Visitors to "Blueprint News"


While dealing with the daily visitor statistics of "blueprint news", I noticed that some of my recent blogspots brought about lots of additional visitors. These visitors referred to such news items dealing with a probable war on Iran, the proceedings of Egypt's president Morsy and the current Ghaza conflict. All those subjects are interrelated within a wider frame that comprises relations between Israel, Palestine and Egypt as well as some kind of ubiquitous Islamic resistance against a U.S.-Israeli alliance that is allegedly threatening the world of Islam in general and the Islamic Republic of Iran as well as the people of Palestine in detail.

No wonder that visitors from Israel and the surrounding countries are increasingly interested in such frame of interrelated items as can be seen from their regional distribution below:


Please note: The maps on this site are showing visitor access points that can be activated by one or more visitors according to their individual specifications. There are general access points for a certain country / region or specific access points enabling the identification of a single visitor. Visitors using address tags like ".com" or ".net" instead of country tags cannot be detected. All local visitor signs are referring to the last 200 registered visitors. Visits dating back more than two weeks have not been included.


Above: Visitor access point activated from Jerusalem
(subject of interest: Egypt's new president Morsy)


Visitors from Northern Pakistan are showing a similar distribution for their subjects of interest together with an unusual increase in the number of visits:



Friday, November 23, 2012

Arabic Press - Ghaza and Syria in Comparison



The photos are showing Israeli shelling of Ghaza City (right) and ruins left by Syrian government shelling of civil targets.

مفاجأة مؤلمة للسوريين حملتها حرب إسرائيل على غزة

Israel's war against Ghaza came as a sad surprise for Syrians.

بأكثر من 1500 غارة جوية قتلت إسرائيل 160 فلسطينيا مقابل 817 سوريا قتلهم النظام

In more than 1500 air raids, Israel killed 160 Palestinians corresponding to 817 Syrians killed by the [Syrian] regime.


[Source: Al-Arabiya on November 22, 2012]

Kairo - " March of the 2 Million "



After Egypt's president Mohammed Morsi issued a constitutional decree widening his presidential powers, thousands took to the streets of Kairo, either in favour (above picture) or in opposition of that decree. On the occasion, Morsi fired the prosecutor general who is being regarded as a relic of former president Mubarak's rule and considered to have hampered criminal prosecution of former regime officials. Morsi already tried to sack the prosecutor general earlier in October but failed because he was lacking the power to do so.

Two prominent leaders of the opposition and a member of the Lawyer's Syndicate called for a "march of the 2 million" to force Morsi's return to the "path of legality" (below picture from left to right: Mohammed El Baradei, founder of the Constitutional Party, Sameh Ashour, head of the Lawyer's Syndicate, and Amr Moussa, former secretary-general of the Arab League).


قوى سياسية مصرية تعلن معارضتها لقرارات الرئيس المصري الأخيرة في مؤتمر صحفي بمقر حزب الوفد

Political forces in Egypt announce their opposition against the last decrees of Egypt's president on a press conference at the site of the Wafd Party.


Friday, November 16, 2012

Israel - New War Against Ghaza


Latest UPDATE for November 17 / 18 further down !




غزة: القصف الاسرائيلي يتواصل، وصاروخ يسقط قرب القدس

Ghaza: Israeli shelling continues while rocket hits near Jerusalem.


After a new type of rockets hit areas of Israel, up to now considered to be secure, Israel is planning an offensive against Palestinian Hamas insurgents in Ghaza.


Above: Range of rockets used by the Hamas movement to attack Jerusalem and Tel Aviv from the Ghaza strip. The Iranian Fajr فجر 5 missile has given a new dimension to the long-standing war between Palestinian insurgents and Israel. Such missiles have been smuggled from Egypt into Ghaza via the demilitarized zone neighbouring Ghaza.

Much support from Egypt should not be expected by Israel when it comes to stop smuggling weapons into Ghaza as president and prime minister of Egypt have already shown their sympathy for the Hamas movement. That should be clear, at least, after Egypt's PM Hisham Kandil visited Ghaza for some hours today.


Above: Egyptian PM Hisham Kandil (left) meeting with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (right).


اعلنت حركة حماس عن تلقيها "عدة عروض من دول مختلفة" لإبرام إتفاق تهدئة مع إسرائيل، مبينة أنه "لا جدية لدى إسرائيل في وقف هجماتها على الفلسطينيين في قطاع غزة."ـ

The Hamas movement announced to deal with "several proposals from different states" [for] a conclusion [giving priority to] an appeasement with Israel [while] making it clear that "there is no [advantage until the moment] Israel is ending its attacks on Palestinians in the Ghaza sector."

وقال الجيش الاسرائيلي الجمعة إنه قرر اغلاق ثلاثة طرق قريبة من قطاع غزة امام حركة المرور المدنية، في اشارة اخرى الى تحشيد محتمل للقوات البرية في المناطق المحاذية للقطاع

On Friday, the Israeli army said it decided to close three passages near the Ghaza sector for [public] traffic of [Ghaza] city [thus giving] another hint on possible concentration of desert troops in the environment facing the [Ghaza] sector.

[Source: BBC Online, Arabic service, on November 16]


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مليون إسرائيلي يحتمون في الملاجئ من صواريخ غزة

A million Israelis need to seek shelter against rockets from Ghaza.

[Source: muslims.net, an Al-Jazeera company, on November 17]


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مزيد من الشهداء والجرحى في غزة، والمقاومة ترد بقصف المستوطنات

Many martyrs [or: dead war heroes] and wounded in Ghaza [while] the resistance is responding with shelling the "implanted colonies".

[Source: Alalam Online, Iranian News Channel, on November 17, 2012]


Editor's Note: The expression "implanted colonies" has the full meaning of "implanted colonies in occupied territories" and should therefore refer to any Jewish settlements. The Iranian website in Arabic language (cropped image below) is mentioning a death toll of 31 Palestinians and 450 wounded in recent fightings.



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On November 17, the center of the Hamas movement in Ghaza has been destroyed by Israeli troops.


Two days before (Nov. 15) the PLO Delegation in Washington DC published a comment at the beginning of renewed military action against the Ghaza strip, staged by Israel and formally approved by the Obama administration. In the below snapshot of that comment, the address of the original PDF document has been inserted to enable verification.



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كتائب القسام قالت إنها أطلقت صواريخ استطاعت الوصول إلى تل أبيب و القدس

The al-Qassam Brigades said they launched rockets able to reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.


مراسل الجزيرة: 3 جرحى في قصف إسرائيلي على مبنى يضم مكاتب إعلامية في قطاع غزة

According to Al-Jazeera's reporter there should have been three wounded during Israeli shelling of a building that is hosting [news agencies] in the Ghaza strip.

[Source: Al-Jazeera, Arabic TV, on November 17/18]


Editor's Note: The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing formed in 1992, is named in commemoration of influential Palestinian nationalist Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam. Although the al-Qassam Brigades are an integral part of Hamas, they also operate independently of Hamas, and at times contrary to Hamas' stated aims. Short-range rockets they use are, as well, named Qassam rockets, even though they might be almost identical to the rather primitive Katyusha missiles used by Hezbollah insurgents in Lebanon.

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Above: Ghazi Hamad, deputy foreign minister of the Hamas government for Ghaza, in an interview with the English service of Al-Jazeera.

November 18 - First Statistics of War

At least 55 people in Ghaza killed by Israeli air strikes and hundreds wounded.

Israeli army says 50 rockets have been fired from the Ghaza strip on Sunday.
Israeli army says 33 rockets have landed in Israeli territory on Sunday.

520 rockets have landed in Israel since start of operation "pillar of defense".
280 rockets fired from Ghaza have been intercepted by "iron dome", an air defence system, in that time.



Above: Launch of Hamas rocket.

Arab League says it will send a delegation to the Ghaza strip on Tuesday while "Mideast Quartet" leader Tony Blair is to meet Israeli PM Netanyahu.

[Source: Al-Jazeera, English service, on November 18, 2012.]


Palestinian Riot in the West Bank



مواجهات بين شبان فلسطينيين و قوات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي في محيط معتقل عوفر العسكري غربي رام الله و في جنوبي نابلس

Confrontations between Palestinian youngsters and Israeli occupation forces in the environment of Ofer military prison, west of Ramallah and south of Nablus.


[Source: Al-Jaazeera, Arabic TV, on November 18]

Editor's Note: The military prison of Ofer, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, is notorious among Palestinian insurgents. There are accusations of human rights' abuse in that place.

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Above: Neighbours of Israel visiting "blueprint news" (i.e. activated visitor access points in the region for the last 200 registered visitors).
Below: Visitor from one of the finest neighbourhoods in Washington DC.