Welcome one and all to a very special, festive and freedom-filled edition of the Weekend Holyland Update, flight 03-29-10, where we visit a place where group A imprisons group B so that group A can celebrate the freedom it won from group C about 3500 years ago, if rumors are to be believed. Please fasten your seatbelts, as the captain has turned on the curfew sign.

Today is passover eve, which means two things: 1) Hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews on the move, schlepping to their grandma, inlaws or in the happiest of cases friends to celebrate the traditional Seder, and 2) hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank upon whom curfew has been imposed, curtailing their ability to travel for dinner with friends and family, or leave their villages or cities for any other purpose for that matter, this being deemed the only way the folks from section 1) can do their thing in peace and quiet. This is standard operating procedure during any and all Jewish holidays, and has been for decades now. There are many to whom this seems perfectly normal, or at the very least justifiable. We report, you decide.

About a week ago, the Israeli supreme court declared that it's OK for the department of corrections to deny non-Jewish inmates fresh bread for the duration of passover (a full week, eight days if you count passover eve), because the very presence of "leavened bread" on the premises would be offensive to the Jewish inmates. In an act of breath-taking tolerance, the gen-pop gentiles were allowed to keep dry packaged non-passover-kosher goods (like crackers) in their lockers in their cells. Oh, just for reference - Israeli jails are baically segregated, which means that no Jew would actually have to see a gentile eating bread in their cell. The Only Democracy In The Middle East, in action. 

As you may have heard, the Israeli Occupation Force lost two soldiers, one a grunt and the other an officer, after the IDF decided it just had to enter the Gaza Strip, which we claim to have left 5 years ago, and which we enter almost every day. Only this time it cost us. Versions abound as to what happened. At first they said that the soldiers, who enteres the strip because Palestinians were spotted planting an IED close to the boundary fence, managed to step on the booby trap they saw being planted. Later the Southern Command general claimed that they were shot, with one of them being hit directly in the hand grenade he carried in his flak jacket, causing an explosion. Yeah, I thought that was terribly believable too... Anyway, like bullies and thugs everywhere, after their aggression backfired, the IDF insisted it had to punish the Gaza Palestinians for daring to defend their territory, and went in and flexed some muscle before leaving about a day later. A few more Palestinians were killed in this little pissing contest, but they were killed by the righteous, so that's ok, and if the wicked get to feeling vindictive or anything over any of these deaths, well, that's just cause they be wicked. 

In not-as-bad-as-usual news, it turns out that due to the near-universal disgust at the decision to relocate a fortified ER in the Qassam-bombarded southern city of Ashkelon because of some 2,000 year-old bones (pagan ones at that) found on the site - that particular bit of stupidity may not happen after all, as even the jehovah-snorting idiot of an acting Health Minister who pushed the decision is desparately seeking a ladder on which to climb down that tree. Still, the fact that it was even tabled, much less approved in a cabinet vote, tells you all you need to know about the state of the state of Israhell.

In the trial over the murder of American peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was run over by a D-9 bulldozer as she was trying to peacefully block it from demolishing a Palestinian family's home, it was revealed that then Southern Command general Doron Almog issued a direct order to the MP investigating the matter to stop investigating. I wonder what his motivation could have been? Almog, by the way, is famous for being one of the first IOF officers to feel the heat of international justice, when a few years back he landed at Heathrow airport and had to cower in the aircraft because someone tipped him off that there was an arrest warrant issued for him in London. Now it seems New York may not be a friendly place for him either. I'm sure there are legal grounds on which to charge a man who so blatantly obstructed the investigation into the murder of a US citizen. 

The jehovah-nazis have launched a new ad campaign, which the Egged bus company is shamefully agreeing to profit from. This campaign consists of posters on the sides of buses depicting an illustration of the Jewish temple sitting on temple mount, instead of the site's current occupant, the al-Aqsa mosque, which has been standing there for the past 1335 years, and which unlike the previous occupant at least isn't a slaughterhouse, and isn't dedicated to a deity that needs to be propitiated by the blood of animals. No-one expects any better from the jehovah-nazis, but what Egged has to gain from igniting religious riots is beyond me. Palestinians seem to be behaving maturely and rejecting the bait. 

Speaking of buildings in Jerusalem, rumor has it that if, as expected, the UN gets together to pass a resolution condemning Israel for building in occupied Palestinian villages it insists on calling parts of "Jerusalem", the US will actually behave like it has a mind of its own, rather than like a dog being wagged by a tail, and - gasp - abstain from the vote, rather than issuing its automatic veto of any critique of Israel. I'ma believe that when I see it. 

And on that skeptical note, the pilot will now return you to your original points of departure and to your individual brands of crazy, which if not looking much better in comparison, we would strongly consider relocation. We are. WHU airlines is not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours. Please collect your luggage and check your comments and thumbs. Thank you for flying the crazy stupid skies.