Lieberman went on a rather unusual trip to the notoriously ultra-right Samarian settlement of Itamar and an ‘illegal’ outpost nearby. He gave a speech there supporting the construction to accommodate natural growth—but not expansion. Thus, in lieu of his usual populist rhetoric, Lieberman recognized, if only implicitly, that the isolated settlements won’t be retained under any final-status agreement with the Palestinian Arabs, though a semblance of normal life there should continue.

In truth, the natural growth issue is greatly exaggerated: youth leaves most settlements for big cities, as it does everywhere in the world.

Netanyahu promised during a government meeting that the settlement freeze won’t continue. Immediately after that he implied the contrary: he said that the freeze was meant to encourage direct talks with the Arabs, which did not materialize. It follows that the freeze would continue if the Fatah chieftain wre to agree to direct talks with Israel.

Whether or not the freeze will be formally extended, it will continue de facto, with construction in settlements severely restricted through the planning process, which has been the government’s policy for many years.

Nothing much happened after Wikileaks published documents on the US involvement in Afghanistan. Many of the cases detailed in the leaks technically amount to war crimes: careless attacks with civilians casualties, extrajudicial targeting of less-than-certain-terrorists, and the condoning of outrageous crimes by coalition partners.

Still, Muslims did not start pouring money into Afghanistan. They did not condemn the United States. The UNSC did not meet to discuss the normal wartime behavior which the liberals had declared criminal.

This attitude contrasts markedly with Muslim hysterics over Israel’s occasional killing of a few Arabs, or with the support extended to Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. In the last case, America actively promoted the Afghani cause. In the first case, America provokes the Arabs by condoning their verbal and military attacks on Israel (Fatah receives American aid despite continual acts of terrorism against Jews). If the United States had supported Israel unequivocally, the Arabs would have been as indifferent to our operations in Gaza and the West Bank as they are toward Afghanistan.

A Bedouin, driving without a license, hit and badly injured a three-year-old boy in Carmiel. Every year, Arabs are involved in thousands of car accidents with Jews, and they often cause them deliberately.