Good for him!

An Israel Defense Forces reserves soldier, taking part in Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip which entered its 17th day on Monday, has refused to enter the Hamas-ruled territory along with his unit in protest of the killing of Palestinian civilians.

On Monday it emerged that the soldier has been jailed for 14 days in a military facility. He was the first soldier to be tried for refusing orders since the beginning of the operation. Attorney Michael Sfard, the legal adviser of Omets ? a non profit organization for judicial and social justice ? said that since the beginning of the Israeli offensive on December 27, eight reservists have sought his advice upon being drafted in the emergency reserves call-up.

Of the eight reservists, three have refused to enter the Strip so far. Two of them arrived at agreements with their commanders exempting them from fighting with their units.

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The White House just announced that President Bush will hold his final formal news conference at 9:15 a.m. ET. On Deadline will be live-blogging, and we’ll report back on anything the president says about his successor. Come back often or click your “refresh” button to see what’s happening.

Now that’s faith.

Paul Apostolakis braved the frigid, whitecapped Hudson River Sunday in his lifeguard trunks to retrieve a gold cross thrown in by the Rev. John Romas of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.

The diving ceremony off Pier A in Battery Park was part of an annual church ritual that commemorates the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River.

Whoever retrieves the cross is thought to have good luck for the year.

“Like Father tells me, I do this for God, and he’s going to be there for me,” said Apostolakis, 20, of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

The deep-freeze dive has been a tradition since St. Nicholas was founded in 1916.
The church, which was located on Cedar St. in lower Manhattan, was destroyed on 9/11.

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AS THE CRIMINAL march of Hamas rocket fire continues across the territory of Israel, the rockets’ red glare casts a new light on Israel’s and the world’s dangerous nuclear complacency. Rockets have fallen, to the north of Gaza, within about 20 miles of Tel Aviv. But even more threatening, they have fallen, to the east, within about 20 miles of Dimona, Israel’s ultra-secret nuclear facility in the Negev desert. Although Israel neither confirms nor denies its possession of a nuclear arsenal, it is clear that, since the 1960s, a plutonium production reactor has been operating at Dimona, and is believed to have created enough material for up to 200 nuclear weapons, which have been manufactured in an adjacent underground facility. What would happen if Hamas rockets rained down on such a place?

These are the worst type of weapons to use. Someone needs to speak out on this!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKgph9PV3SA]

I was meaning to make mention of the fact that this blog has gone over 1,000 posts but it got away from me. So I just noticed that I passed that milestone.

Thanks to all who read these pages.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel said Saturday it was shocked and distressed by a senior Vatican cardinal’s likening of Gaza under Israel’s military offensive to a concentration camp.

A spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the cardinal, whose remarks appeared in an interview Wednesday, adopted the kind of language that Hamas and other Islamic militant groups have used to demonize Israel and equate it with Nazi Germany.

“It was shocking to hear the same kind of terminology from such a high-ranking member of the church,” Israeli spokesman Yigal Palmor said Saturday.

Cardinal Renato Martino, a former Vatican envoy to the United Nations and now Pope Benedict XVI’s top official on issues of peace and justice, said in the interview that Gaza now resembles a “big concentration camp.”

Commenting on Israel’s two-week military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Martino told the online newspaper Il Sussidiario.net that both sides were concerned only with their own interests.

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GENEVA (AFP) — The plight of Palestinians trapped in Gaza is becoming increasingly precarious as the Israeli attack on the territory enters its third week, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Saturday.

“People trapped in zones where military operations are taking place are particularly affected,” it said in a statement from its Geneva headquarters.

The organisation, which has had to scale down its operations for security reasons, said it had received dozens of calls from people who were in zones which could not be reached and were experiencing increasing difficulty in maintaining contact with the outside world.

“Yesterday, we received a call from a family of 40 people, including 20 children, staying in a house in the Netzarim area. They told us they had not had drinking water for almost six days because the well supplying water to their house had been damaged,” the statement quoted an ICRC employee in Gaza as saying.

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