In the first real sign of progress in talks to free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Hamas has agreed to release the first video of the 23-year-old soldier captured by Gaza militants more than three years ago.

In exchange for the so-called "proof of life," Israel has agreed to free 20 Palestinian women held in Israeli jails.

After approving release of the prisoners, Israel's security cabinet said the deal comes ahead of "decisive stages" in the difficult talks.

Israel's Channel 10 reported that German mediators have already seen the one-minute videotape, which is supposed to be turned over to Israeli officials on Friday.

The deal is the first significant breakthrough in talks that have bogged down largely over disagreements over which Palestinian prisoners should be freed in exchange for Shalit's freedom.

It is not clear that Israel and Hamas are any closer to resolving that underlying issue. But the tape is certain to become major news since it will offer Israel and the world the first visual evidence of how Shalit has been treated and what he looks like after three years in captivity.

A few weeks ago, Israel approved release of a letter Shalit wrote soon after his capture in which he described his situation as an "unbearable nightmare."

More than two years ago, Hamas released an audiotape of Shalit in which the young Israeli soldier said he was in poor health and in need of extended medical care.

The new video probably won't lead to a quick agreement, but it is a significant step that could set the stage for a deal.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman suggests in today's column that the political atmosphere in the US today is similar to the atmosphere in Israel when PM Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995.

"I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left," Friedman writes. " But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination."

On-line media innovator Arianna Huffington is in Israel this week trying to understand and write about the complex situation for The Huffington Post.

On Night One, she dined with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who told Arianna that he was an "ABB: Anybody But Bush," and that the Palestinians "need to accept becoming a Palestinian state even before the borders are finalized."

What?

When PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad unveiled a plan last month for creating a Palestinian state within two years, Israeli leaders reacted with consternation...

The following day, Arianna met with Israeli President Shimon Peres, who seduced her with his optimism.

"It's hard to spend any time with Israeli President Shimon Peres and remain pessimistic about the possibility of peace," she wrote of the Nobel Peace Prize-winner whose centrist Kadima party has been relegated to back bench status while the conservative Benjamin Netanyahu leads a right-leaning coalition government that has taken a hard-line on talks with the PA and forcefully rebuffed US attempts to secure a freeze on Israeli settlement building that the nation was supposed to enact in the first phase of the "Road Map" for Middle East peace...

Once imbued with Peres-fueled optimism, Arianna set out to see the settlements for herself.

"Taking it all in, it's hard not to feel weighed down by a sense of hopelessness over the divisions that seem even more entrenched and permanent than the intruding settlements themselves," she wrote today. "Yet, in this land of miracles, we can still imagine the emergence of the kind of leadership that can transform both old hatreds and the facts on the ground."

And so it has been written: Crocs are too comfy for Yom Kippur.

After being asked to weigh in on this important issue, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi has determined that the ugly plastic clog doesn't provide the appropriate level of suffering for the Jewish holy day of atonement.

While Rabbi Elyashiv concluded that it would be technically OK to wear the ugly, but (some say) comfy, shoes, it would be "inadvisable" because they are too comfy.

As the JTA noted a few years ago, Crocs have become the shoe of choice for Jewish worshipers who are barred from wearing leather shoes during Yom Kippur because they are viewed as too comfy.

Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper concluded that this ruling could pose a challenge this year for those looking for a little relief from the discomfort while standing for hours during synagogue prayers...

 

During the recent Ramadan holiday, Palestine TV launched an innovative new comedy, "Country on a String," that won praise from pundits and viewers for daring to poke fun at corruption in the Palestinian Authority and Hamas rulers in the Gaza Strip.

Time Magazine produced this nice video on the series, which shows some snippets from the episodes, including one in which they lampoon Hamas leaders for imposing new rules that required female attorneys in Gaza to wear head scarves.

(The restrictions evolve to the point where everyone is wearing burqas without eye holes, so neither the judges nor the lawyers can see what's going on in the courtroom...)

The sitcom producers are hoping the series will have a life after Ramadan... 

In the most comprehensive investigation of Israel's controversial winter offensive in the Gaza Strip, a special United Nations committee has concluded that the Israeli military and Palestinian militants committed war crimes during the three-week confrontation.

While the 575-page report accuses both Hamas and the Israeli military of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, the bulk of the investigation focuses on Israel

"The Mission concludes that what occurred in just over three weeks at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 was a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability," the UN concluded.

In incident after incident, the UN investigators concluded that the Israeli military took questionable steps by using Palestinians as human shields, killing civilians waving white flags, deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians, unnecessarily demolishing Palestinian homes, recklessly using white phosphorus in densely populated areas, and more.

The report will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Sept. 29, which will decide whether to refer it to the Security Council.

If Israel does not conduct a serious and independent investigation within the next six months, the UN report stated, the UN should consider pursuing the war crimes in the International Criminal Court.

The findings have touched off a firestorm of controversy in Israel.

“The report is nothing less than a declaration of war upon Israel,” high-ranking Foreign Ministry officials reportedly told Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. “It requires the most complicated diplomatic and legal battles in the country’s history. We never expected such a harsh report. It has caused a stir and begun to create a very negative effect.”

In Israel Today, Dan Margalit called the report, prepared by a team led by the Jewish, South African jurist Richard Goldstone, "classic anti-Semitism."

"The liberal anti-Semitism strides delicately, appoints a hostile commission and finds an obsequious Jew, to dance to the tune of the Gentile landowner," Margalit wrote. "The role was assigned to Richard Goldstone, and he met the expectations fully."

In Yedioth, commentaor Eitan Haber said it would be a mistake for Israel to dismiss the UN report.

"We did not need Goldstone and his friends to know that in Operation Cast Lead there were severe cases unbefitting the Israeli army," Haber wrote. "In [the world's] eyes, we are war criminals, contemptible people, killers of small children. This, at the moment, is the image that is being created for us throughout the world—villains, evil, cruel, murderers."

"We can propose that the UN, its institutions and the commission 'kiss our behind' and move on as if nothing had happened," Haber wrote. "What do we care, actually? We should care very much. Slowly but surely, this terrible image will close in on us in the international arena, and then it will not only be Doron Almog who will not be able to travel to London. We will no longer be able to fly to Antalya and the casino at Varna as well. And this will already be a decree that the Israeli public will not be able to withstand. It would be very unwise to mock, downplay or disregard the report. It would be very wise to come out of this trouble safe and sound. The State of Israel would do well to launch a worldwide campaign already this morning, a diplomatic and PR campaign. We should mobilize all of the State of Israel’s best forces, because, as people once used to write in the Israeli press: It is a matter of the utmost importance."

The Israeli government is already taking up the cause.

Today, Israeli President Shimon Peres said the UN report made a "mockery of history."

Many Israeli commentators are assessing the impact of the report on Israel's image.

"The Goldstone report reinforces the most serious strategic threat Israel brought upon itself with the Gaza offensive, in that it saps international legitimacy for a similar operation in the future," Aluf Benn wrote in Haaretz. "A country considering attacking the nuclear reactor in Iran, and then endangering itself to rocket fire from Lebanon and Gaza in response, will have to take into account whether the world will give Israel another opportunity for a severe, crushing response.

For years, former Pentagon intelligence analyst Marc Garlasco has been a go-to source for reporters around the world on military issues from Iraq and Israel to Georgia and Afghanistan.

His role as chief of high-value targeting for the Pentagon (which meant that he decided which sites in Iraq the US military should hit) gave him solid credibility when he transformed into a dogged senior military analyst for Human Rights Watch.

(Garlasco appeared on Fresh Air with Terry Gross to discuss his transformation.)

Now Garlasco is at the center of a damaging controversy over revelations that he is a collector of Nazi memorabilia.

The news, unearthed and released by staunch supporters of Israel who have been doing extensive research on Human Rights Watch, has now prompted the group to suspend Garlasco while it examines the allegations.

While HRW says the suspension is not a disciplinary step, the group has been buffeted by a prolonged attack that has included a scathing critique of Joe Stork, the deputy director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa division.

Garlasco sought to defuse the controversy with a piece for The Huffington Post in which he described himself as a "military geek" whose interest in Nazi medals grew out of his family history: His German grandfather was a conscript who served in the Nazi anti-aircraft battery during World War II.

"The Second World War turned my grandfather, who was conscripted and served on an anti-aircraft battery, into a staunch pacifist," Garlasco wrote. "He couldn't understand why I went to work at the Pentagon, where I was on 9/11, of learning from his experiences - the horrific stories he told me late in life of seeing the bodies he shot down fall out of the sky. It wasn't until he died that I really took his lessons to heart, and decided to use my military expertise to try to lessen the horrors of war. So I left my government career and joined Human Rights Watch to use my expertise in weapons systems and targeting to push soldiers to protect civilians, to uphold the laws born in the ashes of the Second World War."

Garlasco, backed by HRW, has stated plainly that he has never expressed pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic views.

But HRW's critics have scoured thousands of Garlasco's postings on memorabilia Web sites and unearthed selected comments, including one in which he said a "leather SS jacket makes my blood run cold it is so COOL!"

Other bloggers posted a photo of Garlasco wearing a sweatshirt with an Iron Cross on it and questioned Garlasco's defense.

"It is extraordinarily bad taste and truly offensive that the same person who habitually castigates the Jewish state to a worldwide audience has a creepy obsession with the symbols of those who tried to destroy all Jews," wrote the Elder of Ziyon blog.

The criticism hasn't only come from conservatives and staunch supporters of Israel. Helena Cobban, a member of an HRW Middle East advisory committee, called Garlasco's hobby "bizarre and disturbing."

Cobban said the controversy was overshadowing the work HRW has done in documenting possible war crimes by the Israeli military in Gaza.

Richard Silverstein at Tikkun Olam criticized Cobban for lashing out at Garlasco, who also wrote a 400-page book, long publicly available on Amazon, about Nazi medals.

"I don’t really understand why you would suspend someone from his professional assignment when his only fault is having a hobby that few outsiders can comprehend as meaningful or interesting," Silverstein wrote. "Garlasco has made no statement either supporting Nazism or condemning Israel or Jews. In fact, he has harshly criticized the Nazis in the introduction to a book he wrote on collecting such historical artifacts."

The issue has even garnered the attention of Gawker, the gossip Web site that questioned Garlasco's defense.

"There's more going on there than just fanboy enthusiasm for historical artifacts," Gawker opined. "It's a fascination with the remnants of an evil regime, and it seems to us that the fascination bears some relationship to the magnitude of the evil."

As Garlasco noted, he has never hidden his hobby. HRW officials apparently knew long ago about Garlasco's book and never raised any concerns until the Israeli government and its staunch supporters made the issue public.

"My hope is that HRW is suspending Garlasco with the intent on resolving this matter quickly and reinstating him," Silverstein wrote. "The ostensible reason for suspending him is to investigate the matter more fully. I presume someone will want to go over his 8,000 posts contributed to a few collectors discussion forums, to ensure he never said anything that might be further damaging to HRW. Thus far, nothing I have read is in the least incriminating."

Ever since it launched more than a decade ago, Al Jazeera has been viewed by many in the West as an inflammatory propaganda tool for anti-American interests in the Middle East.

The evolution of Al Jazeera was captured in the 2004 documentary "Control Room," which followed Al Jazeera reporters as they covered the Iraq war. (A US Marine Corps spokesman featured in the film, Josh Rushing, has gone on to become a reporter for Al Jazeera English.)

Three years ago, Al Jazeera launched its 24-hour English language channel, Al Jazeera English, which has quickly evolved into a sophisticated, interesting and evocative cable news outlet.

While few in the US can get AJE, those of us in the Middle East are able to regularly watch the station and assess its merits. 

(One of the few places in the US where you can see AJE is Washington, DC, where MHz Networks began offering AJE to customers earlier this year.)

Now, Robert Kaplan, the veteran foreign correspondent and author, is lauding AJE in The Atlantic with a piece titled: "Why I Love Al Jazeera."

"The Qatar-based Arab TV channel’s eclectic internationalism—a feast of vivid, pathbreaking coverage from all continents—is a rebuke to the dire predictions about the end of foreign news as we know it,"  Kaplan writes. "Indeed, if Al Jazeera were more widely available in the United States—on nationwide cable, for example, instead of only on the Web and several satellite stations and local cable channels—it would eat steadily into the viewership of The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. Al Jazeera—not Lehrer—is what the internationally minded elite class really yearns for: a visually stunning, deeply reported description of developments in dozens upon dozens of countries simultaneously."

As Kaplan notes in the piece, reporting on AJE can be uneven, and some reports exude more bias than others. He criticizes AJE for its "moral rectitude," especially in its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Iraq.

"Yet Al Jazeera is forgivable for its biases in a way that the BBC or CNN is not," Kaplan writes. "In the case of Al Jazeera, news isn’t so much biased as honestly representative of a middle-of-the-road developing-world viewpoint. Where you stand depends upon where you sit. And if you sit in Doha or Mumbai or Nairobi, the world is going to look starkly different than if you sat in Washington or London, or St. Louis for that matter."

AJE is compelling viewing because it consistently produces and airs interesting pieces you won't see on the BBC, CNN, Fox or other international news channels that strive to cover the world.

"George Orwell intimated in 1984 that purity can be a form of coercion, and in that respect, I find Al Jazeera’s moral rectitude disturbing," Kaplan concludes. "Because its cause is that of the weak and the oppressed, it sees itself as always in the right, regardless of the complexity of the issues, and therein lies its power of oppression. But I will continue watching Al Jazeera wherever I can, because I find it so riveting compared with other news channels. And if my politics crawl to the left as a result, that will be yet more evidence of just how insidious Al Jazeera’s influence is."