About President Bashir of Sudan being indicted by the International Criminal Court... Most people I have spoken to, both here and in Sudan, think the ICC decision was long overdue. Bashir has sanctioned and even supported the atrocities in Darfur. It is widely assumed that his government supplied arms to the Janjaweed militias. As a result of the ICC, Bashir has kicked all international aid organizations out of Sudan.

We have seen the Sudanese people protesting the ICC's decision and their position is hard for many of us to understand. Don't they know what is happening in Darfur? Today I got a very different perspective from one of my Sudanese friends. She was trained as a doctor and recently opened her own medical clinic in Khartoum.

She writes, "The crisis is not just in the states its double here in Sudan with the international financial crisis & the ICC. Work in the clinic is not fine. The number of patient shrunk because of the ICC & no one is talking about this in the media. The number of sales in the pharmaceutical companies is also decreasing. I am looking for another job beside the clinic & trying to leave Sudan as soon as possible! Something I want to say to you is that people in Sudan hate the Americans now because of the ICC & what happened in Palestine. But for me you are still my best American Jewish friend & I think is one of the last bright points in me now. I still can judge people according to their behavior not from their skin color, nation or religion & I'll love you whatever they are saying about Jews & how much that they are bad, because I know you are good person."

Friday I got stuck at the White House for a good part of the day. I was there to film the daily press briefing, because Priscilla was hoping to get a question in about Roxana Saberi. We cleared it ahead of time, but they gave me some crap about where to setup the camera. I ended up being stuck in the far back corner against the wall. And after standing there for an hour trying to shoot over some lady's shoulder, Priscilla didn't even get to ask the question. After the briefing, Mayor Bloomberg, Gov. Rendell and Gov. Schwarzenegger were giving a press conference after meeting with Obama. I got there just in time to set up my tripod next to a big thorny bush, which I then stood in while they answered questions.

Yesterday I covered a protest organized by Answer Coalition. As with any of these protests, the participants seemed to average one shower a year. It was a fairly typical event - speeches and a march. The march, however, went on forever! They started near the Lincoln Monument and went all the way past the Pentagon to Crystal City Virginia! Manalisi and I were exhausted when we finally got back to the office.

I did a two camera interview with Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (the South African equivalent of Hillary Clinton). The interview was originally scheduled for 4:00, but I got a call at 3:00 to get to her hotel right away. Priscilla, Mima and I quickly set up the lights and cameras. She walked in just as we were finishing. There was no time to check the shots or the audio; luckily everything looked good. The interview itself was incredibly boring, but at least it looked good. So that's all I care about.

Yesterday, Emily and Kate shot an interview with the President of Palau. The secret service didn't know that it was a video interview, so they had to wait half an hour for the bomb sniffing dog. Emily said that the president was very friendly and even stood around afterward to watch the recording of the interview.

I did a couple shoots on Capital Hill this week, including the meeting between John Kerry, Dick Lugar and Ban Ki-Moon. I shot a quick photo-spray (where you go into the meeting room and shoot a few seconds of video) before the meeting, then had to wait an hour for them to make statements afterward.

Yesterday Larry Summers spoke at Brookings. I always like shooting there, because they serve nice pastries and coffee. I got there 45 minutes before his speech and the whole back of the room was jammed with cameras. By the time everyone arrived for the speech, it was standing room only. Luckily I got the last available spot on the first row of cameras. My tripod is too short to go on the back row. The speech was boring, but at least it was much more comprehensible than when Bernanke speaks.

I had a pretty busy week. Manelisi (the SABC correspondent) did at least seven stories this week. Yesterday I had a shoot in the Rayburn building on Capital Hill and Ron Paul was there to liven things up. James Baker, Warren Christopher and someone who I didn't recognize were there to propose changes to the way the president interacts with congress when deciding to go to war. Ron Paul clearly disagreed with their proposal and he engaged James Baker in a heated debate.

Emily and I have a new intern named Mima. She came with us to the political conventions, so we know she is a good worker. We convinced her to go to Sudan and join SVP after her school semester ends. Now her parents, who are friends with Simon, are asking him about us and trying to find out how these crazy people convinced her to go to Africa. They are clearly not pleased with us.

I've been studying my chess books and playing games against my computer, but I have not improved much. I found out that the US Chess Center is a couple blocks from my office and they hold tournaments regularly. I'm going to play there when I have some time.

I'm working late tonight covering the Obama speech. Earlier I was at the State Department waiting for Hillary Clinton and the Pakistani foreign minister to make a statement after their meeting. They were 45 minutes late for the press briefing, which is really annoying when the whole thing lasts 3 minutes.

They let the still photographers crouch in front of the videographers. There were a couple journalists who were obviously not still photographers, but happened to have little cameras, so they were allowed upfront. Unfortunately they were not keen on the idea of sitting. The CNN cameraman and I told them repeatedly to sit down and stay down until Clinton has left the room. They finally sat down a couple minutes before the briefing, but jumped up as she was leaving the room, ruining the walk-out shot. Why are people so obnoxious?

I tried to make a nice Valentines day dinner for Emily and I, but failed miserably. The sauce was suppose to be a vinegar reduction to go on the steak, but the sugar caramelized and it turned into a hard, sticky mess. The worst part is that it didn't harden until I got it onto the steak. It stuck to the plates and silverware like vinegar flavored hard candy. We had to throw out the pot I made it in. The potatoes were good and the steak was good, but I didn't know that you are suppose to cut the ends off fresh green beans. Emily had to cut the ends off each one before eating them. I made bought chocolate covered strawberries for dessert. They were good, but the chocolate didn't stay on. We had to eat a bite of strawberry then a bite of chocolate. Even that was hard, because the chocolate flaked off all over us.

My poor, sweet sugar glider Morty died last night. He seemed fine yesterday, but today he was just laying at the bottom of his cage holding onto the bars. I picked him up and tried to feed him, but he was very lethargic and didn't want to eat. Emily and I brought him to the vet last night. They put him on oxygen and tried to figure out what was wrong. But about an hour after we got to the vet, he passed away. He was the nicest little guy and we will miss him.

We finally had the family Hanukkah party last night. Yes I know, Hanukkah was two months ago. It was held at the Hantman's house and all the usual people were in attendance. After dinner we played Taboo. Grandma Mitzi caught on quickly and became the hero for our team.

Yesterday I was shooting a briefing about the US arms deal with Israel. It was in one of the Congressional office buildings. A few minutes after the briefing started a tall, young, red-headed woman walked in. I thought, she looks like Dennis Kusinich's wife. Sure enough, following behind her was Dennis Kusinich. Would I have ever recognized any other member of congress' wife? Of course not. I'm a big fan of Mr. Kusinich's stance on the Israel / Palestine issue, so I'm glad he showed up to speak. It was pretty tacky, and I usually don't do this, but I couldn't stop myself from shaking his hand and complimenting him on the work that he does.

So I'm finally getting around to writing about the inauguration... In short, it was a long, cold, exhausting day. Emily and I were both up by 4:30am. She was working at the Washington Post and I was headed to the National Mall. I arrived around 5:30am and met up with Daniel (the correspondent). Neither the police nor the information officers knew where the media entrance was, but they all agreed that it must be on the other side of the Capital. We took the long hike around the building and found that the guards on the other side didn't know either. We saw a small line of photographers at the entrance to the Rayburn building, so we decided to go through security acting like we knew what we were doing. We got through the first security screening, went down to the basement and out the capital side entrance through another layer of security. We were now on the mall, but not where we needed to be. A line was forming near the south entrance to the Capital. We stood there hoping we wouldn't get turned away. We made it though the final security checkpoint and found ourselves on the balcony where the inauguration was taking place! I quickly set up my camera and got a great crowd shot.

The next few hours were spent getting interviews with people in the crowd and trying desperately to stay warm. We were successful in the former, but failed miserably in the latter. When the ceremony finally started, I found a good spot beside the Capital reflecting pond to set up my tripod. I was meant to be shooting crowd shots; the speech itself was to be shared freely among all the TV networks. I was right in front of the Capital during the swearing in and Obama's speech, but I would have gotten a better view if I had been further back. I couldn't see any of the Jumbotrons from where I was standing. Nevertheless, I was there to witness the event and film the crowd's reaction.

Afterward I had to walk back to the office. Most of the streets around the Capital were closed and I figured the metro would be jammed, so I walked under the Mall via the 3rd street tunnel and started the long hike. I ended up staying at the office editing for SABC and other clients until 9:00pm. I'm glad I won't have to do another one of these for four years.

Professor discusses the evolution of religion.

Was this Onion article really written in 2001?

UN suggests Israel is guilty of war crimes.

Now Israel is using phosphorus shells against civilians and the UN.

More than 1000 people have been killed in Gaza in the past 19 days. Almost 1/3 of the dead are children.

Click here to read the story on the BBC website.

Israeli soldiers using Palestinian children as human shields:

This is sad...

Today I received a forwarded e-mail containing a "Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict." The following are the assertions made in the e-mail and my refutations (in bold):

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem. Israel became a nation in 1312 BCE, Two thousand years before the rise of Islam.

The newly created United Nations approved the UN Partition Plan (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181) on November 29, 1947, dividing the country into two states, one Arab and one Jewish. Jerusalem was to be designated an international city – a corpus separatum – administered by the UN to avoid conflict over its status.

On May 14, 1948, the day before the end of the British Mandate, the Jewish Agency proclaimed independence, naming the country Israel.

2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

The first widespread use of "Palestinian" as an endonym to refer to the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people by the local Arabic-speaking population of Palestine began prior to the outbreak of World War I, and the first demand for national independence was issued by the Syrian-Palestinian Congress on 21 September 1921.

3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BCE, the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

Between the time of the Israelite kingdoms and the 7th-century Muslim conquests, the Land of Israel fell under Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Sassanian, and Byzantine rule. Jewish presence in the region dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE and the resultant large-scale expulsion of Jews. In 628/9, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius conducted a massacre and expulsion of the Jews, at which point the Jewish population probably reached its lowest point.

4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 CE lasted no more than 22 years.

The Land of Israel was captured from the Byzantine Empire around 636 CE during the initial Muslim conquests. Control of the region transferred between the Umayyads, Abbasids, and Crusaders over the next six centuries, before falling in the hands of the Mamluk Sultanate, in 1260. In 1516, the Land of Israel became a part of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled the region until the 20th century.

5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital Jerusalem has
never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.

Jerusalem is considered Islam's third holiest city after Mecca and Medina. Among Muslims of an earlier era, it was referred to as al-Bayt al-Muqaddas; later, it became known as al-Quds al-Sharif. In 638, the Islamic Caliphate extended its dominion to Jerusalem. With the Arab conquest, Jews were allowed back into the city. The Rashidun caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab signed a treaty with Monophysite Christian Patriarch Sophronius, assuring him that Jerusalem's Christian holy places and population would be protected under Muslim rule. The Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik commissioned the construction of the Dome of the Rock in the late 7th century. The 10th century historian al-Muqaddasi writes that Abd al-Malik built the shrine in order to compete in grandeur of Jerusalem's monumental churches. Over the next four hundred years, Jerusalem's prominence diminished as Arab powers in the region jockeyed for control.

6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.

Jerusalem is also mentioned over 150 times in the New Testament, but the United States is not. Perhaps the entire US population should move to Israel.

7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.

The Dome of the Rock, being among a complex of buildings on the Temple Mount, (the other being the Al-Aqsa Mosque) is one of the holiest sites in Islam. Its significance stems from the religious beliefs regarding the rock at its heart. According to Islamic tradition, the rock is the spot from where Muhammad ascended to Heaven accompanied by the angel Gabriel.

8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.

The most basic knowledge of geography shows that the only Muslims who pray with their back to Jerusalem are the ones who live in Saudi Arabia north of Mecca and in southern Jordan.

9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.

Typically the Jewish forces carried out reprisals directed against villages and neighborhoods from which attacks against Jews had allegedly originated, The attacks were more damaging than the provoking attack and included killing of armed and unarmed men, destruction of houses and sometimes expulsion of inhabitants. The Zionist groups of Irgun and Lehi reverted to their 1937-1939 strategy of indiscriminate attacks by placing bombs and throwing grenades into crowded places such as bus stops, shopping centres and markets.

10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.


True. However, the Zionists used the same tactics against the Arabs. According to Ilan Pappé the Zionists organised a campaign of threats, consisting of the distribution of threatening leaflets, 'violent reconnaissance' and, after the arrival of mortars, the shelling of Arab villages and neighborhoods. The idea of 'violent reconnaissance' was to enter a defenceless village at night, fire at everyone who dared leave his or her house and leave after a few hours. Pappé also notes that the Haganah shifted its policy from retaliation through excessive retaliation to offensive initiatives. During the 'long seminar', a meeting of Ben-Gurion with his chief advisors in January 1948, the departure point was that it was desirable to 'transfer' as many Arabs as possible out of Jewish territory, and the discussion focussed mainly on the implementation. The experiences in a number of attacks in February 1948, notably those on Qisarya and Sa'sa', were used in the development of a plan, detailing how enemy population centers should be handled. According to Pappé plan Dalet was the master plan for the expulsion of the Palestinians.


11. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.

Palestinians in the diaspora by place of residence:
Jordan 3,000,000
Syria 434,896
Lebanon 405,425
Chile 300,000
Saudi Arabia 327,000
The Americas 225,000
Egypt 44,200
Other Gulf states 159,000
Other Arab states 153,000
Other countries 308,000
TOTAL 5,256,321

12. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: the Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.

a.) The Arab nations initiated all five wars.
False: The Six Day War was initiated by Israel. Operation Focus was the opening pre-emptive airstrike by Israel at the start of the Six-Day War of 1967. It is sometimes referred to as "Sinai Air Strike" since the focus was primarily on airfields around the Sinai Peninsula. At 07:45 on June 5, 1967, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) under Maj. Gen. Mordechai Hod launched a massive airstrike that destroyed the majority of the Egyptian air force on the ground. By noon, the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian Air Forces, with about 450 aircraft, were destroyed.

b.) Israel defended itself each time and won.
False: According to the Winograd Commission Report, the Second Lebanon War was regarded as a "missed opportunity" and that "Israel initiated a long war, which ended without a defined military victory". The report continued to state that "a semi-military organization of a few thousand men resisted, for a few weeks, the strongest army in the Middle East, which enjoyed full air superiority and size and technology advantages". Furthermore, Hezbollah's rocket attacks continued throughout the war and the IDF did not provide an effective response to it. Following a long period of using standoff fire power and limited ground activities, the IDF launched a large scale ground offensive close to the UN Security Council's resolution which imposed a cease-fire. "This offensive did not result in military gains and was not completed".


13. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.
Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.

The most controversial element of text of the Palestinian National Charter were many clauses declaring the creation of the state of Israel "null and void", because it was created by force on Palestinian soil. This is usually interpreted as calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. In letters exchanged between Arafat and Rabin in conjunction with the 1993 Oslo Accords, Arafat agreed that those clauses would be removed. On 26 April 1996, the Palestine National Council held a meeting in camera, at whose end it was announced that the Council had voted to nullify or amend all such clauses, and called for a new text to be produced. At the time, Israeli political figures and academics expressed suspicions and doubts this that this is what had actually taken place, and continued to claim that controversial clauses were still in force. A letter from Arafat to US President Bill Clinton in 1998 listed the clauses concerned, and a meeting of the Palestine Central Committee approved that list. To remove all doubt the vote this time was held in a public meeting of PLO, PNC and PCC members which was televised worldwide and in the presence of the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, in person, who arrived in the Gaza Strip for that specific purpose. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted this as the promised nullification.

When is this Israel-Gaza conflict going to stop? It is the same war that has been going on for decades. This time the Palestinians are using rockets instead of suicide bombers. They have no choice when they are walled into Gaza like a modern day ghetto. The rockets certainly don't accomplish anything. Except maybe making them feel good about standing up to Israel. And Israel is not accomplishing anything but fueling more hatred, violence and further justifying the US foreign aid they receive to purchase weapons. We need to stop funding the Israeli military. It's the only way this conflict will end. Let them throw rocks at each other until they are worn out. Instead Israel uses four casualties to justify invading, bombing schools and hospitals, killing hundreds of civilians (including 30 children in one school) and cutting off access to aid organizations. They have even shot a UN truck, forcing the UN to halt food shipments. The Israeli government and its supporters need to look back at the history of the country. Think about the holocaust survivors who fled to this land and the people who originally envisioned the state of Israel. Is this any different than the way they were treated before they left Europe?