Joel Leyden of the Israel News Agency reports on Borat the movie and Antisemitism in America.

The full story can be seen here:
http://tinyurl.com/yfcy7g

The story highlights:
* How British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) exposes prejudice
* The concern some have about pushing the envelope too far
* Public relations and how it's not done (care of the government of Kazakhstan)
* Prior attempts at pushing the envelope, e.g. Charlie Chaplain and the Hitler Sketch

Most of the rivers that flow through both Israel and the Palestinian Authority controlled areas are heavily polluted.

A team of Israeli and Palestinian researchers have joined forces to create a blueprint for action to restore the quality of 15 rivers that flow through both Israeli and Palestinian areas.

Lior Asaf, scientific coordinator of the project on the Israeli side has said the project demands a great of cooperation between the Palestinian and Israeli teams and the researchers have been working extremely well together. "Certainly from the perspective of "peace making" the initiative has exceeded the participants' expectations," the annual report on the project states.

Good news stories need sharing too, this one seems to only be available via government sources... the media does not seem interested. Whether that's because it is about Israeli-Palestinain cooperation, or whether it is becuase it is about the environment... the combination is obviously not "news worthy" for the main stream media.

The Israeli Defence Minister (Peretz) has appointed Member of Knesset (the Israeli Parliment) Raleb Majadele as Minister of Science, Technology, Culture, and Sports.

Majadele, a Muslim, is the first Arab to be appointed minister since the
foundation of the State. The first Druze Minister was appointed in 2001.

Peretz noted that the appointment was historic, and hoped it would
improve the relationships between the different sectors in Israel.

Mean time an MK from the right wing Yisrael Beiteinu party said this appointment was a blow for Zionism, and was told by numerous parlimentarians and parties that they had no idea what they were talking about. One member of the Knesset went so far as to ask the Attorney General to check whether there is legal justification for opening a criminal investigation over the remarks.

As member of the Knesset have pointed out, Zionism all always advocated the integration of Arabs who are loyal to the state in all of its institutions on the basis of equality. Likud (the right of center party) have stressed this and called for a debate on the comments which they too describe as racist. The roel of Arabs being full partners in Zionism was supported by Herzl, Jabotinsky and Begin - three very different political views on Zionism but on this matter all entirely in agreement.

The BBC (as expected) has picked up the story, but not given much focus to the strong reaction against the comments. From their point of view, they comments are perhaps what they'd LIKE to think Israel and Zionism are about. This is itself another type of Racism and the UKs racism is perhaps far worse - being wide spread and not reacted so strong as we can see happens in Israel. In an effort not to spread racism in the UK we will NOT link to the BBCs story. HaAretz on the other hand has a decent story that is far longer and richer in detail.

The big news seems to be that Barak is re-entering the political game and making a bid for the Labour party leadership. Despite the recent announcement it looks like old news. Barak went to far when he was Prime Minister and it's doubtful if anyone will have forgotten that.

In more interesting news, the Cabinet Secretariat released their notes on Sunday's Cabinet meeting. An interesting it does not have further information. It seems the Cabinet discussed and rejected an appeal against the Ministerial Committee on Legislation and Law Enforcement’s decision that
approved various provisions of the 2006 Beverage Container Recycling Law. The interesting thing is that the objection came from the Environmental Protection Minister Gideon Ezra. So... what's all this about bottles then? It seems that last year Israel passed a law that extended the range of products the government was offering a recycling rebate on. HaAretz reported last year that 1.5L bottles were includes for the first time. So what was the object? Given the source it's unlikely to be a proposed budget cut to reduce recycling!

Israel increasing it's recycling and beingcomign a greener place is FAR more interesting news than Barak's re-enterence to politics. I just wish we knew what the objections were about...

A wanted terrorist, Muhammad Muntasser Taufik Abu Zaid, was shot and injured while attempting to escape arrest in Bethlehem today. The 19 year old who is responsible for numerous shooting attacks at Israeli Soldiers and who had recruited terrorists for bombing attacks against Israeli civilians is currently in an Israeli hospital receiving medical treatment.

Abu Zaid is an explosives expert involved in bomb construction and weapons dealing and according to security sources received directives and funds
from members of the Popular Resistance Committees terror organization in the
Gaza Strip. Abu Zaid was known to be planning further attacks as recently as the past few days. This is arrest has hopefully prevented the death of further Israeli civilians.