16/04/2008 The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel.

"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor."

Netanyahu reportedly made the comments during a conference at Bar-Ilan University on the division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.
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Meanwhile, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast doubt over the veracity of the September 11 attacks Thursday, calling it a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Four or five years ago, a suspicious event occurred in New York. A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names," Ahmadinejad told Iranians in the holy city of Qom.

"Under this pretext, they [the U.S.] attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then, a million people have been killed only in Iraq."

Speaking Wednesday at a news conference on the Iran threat, Netanyahu compared Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler and likened Tehran's nuclear program to the threat the Nazis posed to Europe in the late 1930s.

Netanyahu said Iran differed from the Nazis in one vital respect, explaining that "where that [Nazi] regime embarked on a global conflict before it developed nuclear weapons," he said. "This regime [Iran] is developing nuclear weapons before it embarks on a global conflict."

Quotable: Netanyahu says Israel benefitted from 9/11

DoD announces that the Israeli flag will now be draped over American coffins

White House News

The Department of Defense today issued a press release that stated that henceforth, the state flag of Israel, the Star of David, will replace the Stars and Stripes now being used to drape over caskets of American dead coming home from the Israeli Theater, or as it's more commonly known as, the Iraq War.

"Bennie" Netanyahoo, the Pentagon spokesman, said that this was the least the country could do, in order to pay homage to the bravery of the Israelis and the sacrifices that Israel has endured as a result of the U.S. invading Iraq based on intelligence supplied by Israel.

Netanyahoo said every red-blooded American should still stand erect, and salute the Star of David, just as if it were the American flag.

He added "Not a day goes by on a Tel Aviv Beach and not a night passes in one of our trendy bars on Dizengoff Street without one of the sun worshippers or one of the bar patrons toasting Israeli luck in having America fight its wars."
"This time for reflection cuts enormously into the Israeli party life and as such, should be given some type of memorial, if not some type of award or honor, like draping the Star of David over the caskets of Americans killed fighting for Israel in Iraq."

"Americans", added Netanyahoo, "Should be feel honored that their kids are fighting and dying in a war fought for Israel."

When asked what he thought of this change by the DoD, the Israeli PM, Ehdiot Olmert said, "It's very good for Israel... Well, it's not good, per se, but it will generate immediate sympathy for Israel."

DoD said that the U.S. Congress was putting together a several billion dollar aid package for Israel, to compensate Israel for the time, trouble and material used in making the Star of David flags, which are imported by Israel from China.

Netanyahoo said President Bush had issued Executive Order 1984-666 to change federal law in order for this flag substitution to take effect and that the president was glad to be in bed with the Israelis on this issue, together beating off "evil-doers" world wide.

And that the president realized that since Israel was helping America shoulder this load, that America would be more than happy to take an Israeli load.

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