Left I on the News

You may have seen the news that the U.S. is about to double the amount of military equipment is has stockpiled in Israel, from $400 to $800 million. What is less widely reported is the second half of this sentence:

The U.S. Army will double the value of emergency military equipment it stockpiles on Israeli soil, and Israel will be allowed to use the U.S. ordnance in the event of a military emergency.

Needless to say, "military emergency" is a rather broad term. It could encompass Israel running out of bombs, as it did in the summer of 2006 during its bombardment of Lebanon (which required a rush shipment of more bombs from the U.S.), or the latest non-violent anti-Wall demonstration in Bi'lin. After all, Israel considers everything that happens, and even a lot that it imagines (like Iran building nuclear weapons), as "existential threats," and what could be more of an "emergency" than an "existential threat"?

In case you're wondering what this entails:

The deal allows Israel access to a wider spectrum of military ordnance, and the U.S. official said his government was considering which forms of military supplies would be added to stores in Israel. Missiles, armored vehicles, aerial ammunition and artillery ordnance are already stockpiled in the country.

Read that again. They're considering a "wider spectrum" of weapons, and the spectrum already includes pretty much everything you might imagine. It's interesting to speculate just what might be part of that "wider spectrum"; I have no idea.

And, on a lighter note, since we're talking about perceived threats to Israel, here's what preoccupies the IDF:

The Israel Defense Forces human resources chief Maj. Gen. Avi Zamir yesterday called for a boycott of products advertised by Israeli supermodel Bar Rafaeli.

Speaking at a lecture at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Zamir was asked why the army did not act against Rafaeli, who married under false pretenses so she could evade military service. Zamir said that, according to law, he could not act against Rafaeli. "She went and married a 37-year-old guy, so what can I do?" he said.

By the way, I don't know who that "37-year-old guy" is; Leonardo di Caprio, her boyfriend, is 35. And if you think I'm exaggerating when I use the word "preoccupied" with respect to this bizarre subject, note that this story first surfaced last June and the IDF is still going on about it.

P.S. - Notice how I refrained from posting an image of Rafaeli with this story, which could have increased traffic to this blog ten-fold.