Welcome once again to another edition of intrepid travels, aka The Weekend Holyland Update, coming to you from the land of bilk and money, where green meets wash, needless death meets a slap on the wrist, injury meets indifference, suffering meets exploitation, secret fiery weapons meet the sandy beach and knife meets flesh at the resting place of the Prince of Peace. Confused? You won't be by the time we're done with y'all. This is WHU flight 042610. Please fasten your seatbelts. The pilot has turned on the no meteors sign.

A small, flaming UFO hit the beach at the Tel Aviv suburb of Bat Yam on Saturday, luckily failing to hit anyone. It was a U-FO at the time of impact, leading to speculation that it may be a meteorite, but this was quickly ruled out and instead it was apparently part of some kind of dubious phosphorous-based weapon that went astray, probably from the naval base at nearby Palmahim. Of course all we know is the phosphorous part. The weapon part is mere conjecture. Still, until someone comes up with a better explanation for what flying phosphorous was doing there, I'm sticking with my version.

At the church of the holy sepulchre, a tourist stabbed a man and then tried to stab a cop, who had to shoot him. I'm sure the local resident wasn't happy, but as long as the Copts and the Ethiopians don't get any ideas and stick to their ocassional outbursts of fisticuffs, I think he'll manage.

The Holyland real estate scandal continues unabated. The current deputy mayor of Jerusalem has been arrested, as was former PM Ehud Olmert's long-time personal assistant and recurring star in all his corruption cases, Shula Zaken. Zaken also just happened to be abroad when the case broke, and 5-0 have been waiting on her for almost a week. She landed today and was arrested upon arrival, and police for the first time affirmed that Olmert is suspected of taking bribes in connection with the scandal.

Concurrently (don't you love those perfect timings?) Israel's leading rag, Yediot Aharonot, which is at war with a free rag called "Israel HaYom" (Israel Today) which was started by gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson for the explicit purpose of supporting Bibi (which means all the for-pay rags are now against Bibi), published a weekend expos'e on how Bibi's personal lawyer keeps demanding - and often getting - all these amazing freebee deals from the state. Fascinating stuff, and along with the news from the states about how Goldman Sacks anally raped its customers, I keep wondering why we the destitute don't rise up on the rich, ya know, pitchforks, torches and shit.

Speaking of which, on the heels of news that some of the biggest execs over here take home salaries like 200 times or more that of their average workers, a law was proposed to cap exec pay at the pauper wages of around 80 thousand dollars a month. The ruling elite mobilized to block it, with the Baron von Bibhausen pretending to be in favor but then blocking it, his sock puppet finance minister coming out fully against, and little chance of it passing. Speaking of the sock-puppet, Mr. Steinitz recently opined that people shouldn't treat teaching as an actual career, but as something that you make a little living off of for 10-15 years at most. You know, what a woman does before she marries a rich man. And then people wonder why our education system, which used to rank first in the world in math and science, is now somewhere under slot 35.

Israel marked Earth Day with a rolling hour of voluntary darkness through Israel's cities, which got a tiny taste of what Gaza goes through for several hours every day. Speaking of green, there's quite a bit of greenwashing going on. I could summarize it, but these guys already did. Enjoy


Remember the ethnic cleansing order the IDF passed earlier this month? (ok, it's not ethnic cleansing, just something allowing one ethnic group to remove tens of thousands of another ethnic group from someplace....). Well, there was a great Q&A that addressed some of the questions, but I can't find it. So instead, here is personal account, from a very funny writer and website (It's about kebob!) illustrating why it's evil.

Speaking of evil, this Palestinian worker fell from the eighth floor, miraculously survived, was taken by Israeli ambulance to the checkpoint. Upon learning that the wounded man was an illegal worker, they paramedics in the Israeli ambulance reportedly refused to treat him until they transferred him to a Palestinian ambulance at the checkpoint. Hypocritical about Hippocrates, no?

As the geekish among you may know, Israel has now rescinded its ban on the personal importation of Apple's I-Pad, having determined that it will not, in fact, interfere with the operation of other cellular devices - this after confiscating a few at the airport, to the immense chagrin of some folks who were eager to be all cutting edge in their supplication before another style over substance artifact. 

There was some buzz on the net that original rapper Gil Scott Heron ("The Revolution Will Not Be Televized") was calling off his May 25 Tel Aviv concert. Apparently he said at his London gig that he was cancelling the show, and won't play here "till everyone is welcome there". However, his management hasn't confirmed the cancellation yet and some say he just said it to get the protesters to quiet the hell down. His own official site still has the gig in Tel Aviv happening as planned. We shall see. Will the revolution be Tel-Avivized? (hat tip: Catwoman). Update: Gig now gone from the man's official site. BDS strikes again. 

Remember I told you about how the moral and honest IDF admitted that four deaths that occured a few weeks ago within like a day of each other were needless? Well, the brigadier and the battalion commander got a "commander's note" in their service records. (update: oh, and a platoon leader was removed from command. Oh noes!) That's the going rate for four young Palestinians, needlessly shot to death.

Personal note - I go on trial this Thursday for a (kinda dumb but hardly criminal, imnsho) rhetorical ploy I pulled in my blog almost two years ago. I've mentioned this before and the mothership is supposed to be writing something about it, so I don't want to belabor the matter. Just wish me luck and since my family may be deprived of my (not so hot recently, but still) earning capacity for, um, a maximum of three years (doubt it, but still) - lemme know if you hear about anyone who wants to buy a kidney, or lend a few thousand bucks.

Back to the action, and nearing landing, Eli the Weasel, who's been posing for decades as some great moral light despite having nothing to offer but the utterly unexceptional (if keen and well expressed) sense of his own suffering and despite blocking the recognition of other people's suffering (Romani Gypsies, in this case) with all his might for decades as well, opened his trap again, telling Obama that "Jerusalem" is above any political disputes - meaning, of course, that everyone should accept that everything Israel chooses to define as "Jerusalem" should be sacrosanct. I don't know if Mr. Weasel even knows that what Israel calls "Jerusalem" includes about 65 square km that have never, ever, under anyone, been part of "Jerusalem", or if he just doesn't care because Jews uber alles. Maybe Mr. Weasel should concern himself with trying to recover his losses from Bernie Madoff and take a big bite of STFU.

Finally, on a similar note, settler scum have been perfecting a cute little trick for how to steal some more land. They have been trying for a while to steal wells and springs, on which many Palestinian villagers depend for water, putting up a shed or what not and declaring it their spot, rather than the villagers'. Now, even our army would prevent them from doing that, so they came up with a brilliant solution - they take over the spring and erect a "memorial" for some fallen soldier. Army comes, and goes "Oh, a memorial for a soldier... well, obviously we can't touch THAT". Told you it was cute.

And on that larcenous note, the pilot will now return you to your local brands of petty injustice - which, if not looking markedly less vomitous in comparison, you should seriously consider relocation. 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 skies.