Lowering the Bar, raising the profile

So do most Americans have issues with Israelis? Many, many issues, it appears...and more than ever. The most popular magazine in America, the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, sports Israeli model Bar Rafaeli on its 2009 cover. She's shown adjusting her suit, just as the IDF (whose service she managed to dodge) is strategizing how to tackle suits about some alleged war crimes during Operation Cast Lead. You'll notice that both actions literally let the left down. How low can you go?

In the same week, Bar's portrait is going to be painted larger than life on the side of an aircraft-- the Southwest Airlines jet to Las Vegas, no less--but the 23-year-old blonde has her feet firmly on the ground and says she is most delighted with her exposure on the newsstands. (She's been displayed on the inside pages twice before) Here's to a full-body press! Bar also mused to Time magazine that, had she been at home to vote, she might have cast her ballot for a fellow-blonde, Tzipi Livni, who is also a forward thinker. Kadima, eh.

It'll be some time before all the sums are done and Israel's new ruling coalition is in place. In these transitory times, in her skimpy swimsuit, Bar Rafaeli is raising interest in a different side of Israel.