No more ethnic cleansing

Obama tells Jews where they can live... read more

Ahmadi

President Obama is leaning on Israel rather than leaning on the terrorists

..the ultimate solution in Israel may not be a "two-state" solution, but a "one heart" solution.  He said, "Most Muslims in the Middle East are not hard-line.  They're very open to the gospel. ...read more

Kadima MK Nachman Shai:

In contrast to his pre-election promises, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is working assiduously to legitimize the rule of Hamas in Gaza, a terror organization ... read more

Israel's settlements are on shaky ground

Good old Sarah Leah!!
International law mandates that they must be removed and that the Palestinians should be compensated for their losses.read more

Clerical Errors

The conflict in Tehran between liberals and clergy is the tragedy of modern Iranian history....read more

Aharon Barak: A State of All its Citizens

"A Jew has precedence when it comes to Aliyah [immigration], but as soon as he gets here, his rights should be equal to those of an Arab,"...read more

Mashaal rejects idea of demilitarized Palestine as 'pathetic'

Hamas politburo chief responds to Obama, Netanyahu speeches, says Palestinians 'reject Israel's position on the refugees, Jerusalem, and the Jewish state.' ... read more

Aristotle

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion.
Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom
they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less
easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
Aristotle

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
Aristotle

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive
them of their arms.
Aristotle

Netanyahu Meet the Press

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31463249/ns/meet_the_press/

Demilitarized Palestinian State?

by Prof. MK Arieh Eldad
Once upon a time, there was such a state,"I don't think there's a Palestinian nation. There's an Arab nation. I don't think there's a Palestinian nation...read more

The Debate About Israeli Settlements

How To Help the Palestinian People

by Khaled Abu Toameh
Walid Omari, the head of the Qatar-based satellite TV station's operations in the West Bank, told Reporters Without Borders that his crew was preparing a report on the death of a detainee at the Palestinian Authority detention center in Hebron that might have been the result of torture... read more

Life

The War Of Words That Israel Must Start Winning

Israel-bashing has become a national sport in many countries...read morel

Palestinians were made to pay an unfair price

Their refusal to accept the Partition Plan of 1947...read more
Haaretz talkback
Ganz suffers from a syndrome in which born Jews hope that by accepting the cause of enemies of the Jews, they & the Jews will be spared the consequences of anti-Semitism. Sufferers of this syndrome truly believe in the false hope that those who hate Jews will change their attitude once Jews paliate one demand or another. It`s sick.

Obama's Wobbliness Is a Great Danger to Israel

by Mortimer Zuckerman
Obama's rhetoric only emboldens terrorists..
read more

Our Egyptian Friends

memritv

'The Emperor has no clothes!'

by Jan Willem van der Hoeven
"Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace (Jeremiah 8:11)...
read more

Encountering Peace: Dressing up the Palestinian state

by Gershon Baskin
Let us assume for a moment that the Palestinians accept all of Netanyahu's conditions - their state will be demilitarized, it will have no effective control of its external borders, its airspace, seaport, electromagnetic sphere. The Palestinians will agree to define the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people....read more

No holds barred: Spectator of the free world: Obama and Teheran

by Shmuley Boteach
"And Moses looked this way and that way and saw there was no man. Then he smote the Egyptian." When Moses saw there was none but him to address this moral outrage, he sacrificed his cushy position in Egyptian society and acted to right a wrong. read more

PM Fayad: Palestinian state within 2 years

He refused to back down from the Palestinian stance that there would be no peace negotiations until a West Bank settlement freeze. ...read more

Olmert pulling out

Olmert's proposal implies Israeli willingness to give up sovereignity over the Temple Mount, the Old City and the Mount of Olives....read more

enemy of my enemy

"You never know what will disappear in Iran first – their enriched uranium or their poor government," said Mr. Peres....read more

Settlers and Peace in Iran

If only the settlers would go back to Europe and Moslem countries there would be peace in Iran

Column One: Israel's rare opportunity

b Caroline Glick
The revolutionary atmosphere building in Iran presents Israel with a prospect it has rarely confronted: a safe bet...read more

Think before you speak

JOHN KERRY, Washington
The grass-roots protests that have engulfed Iran since its presidential election last week have grabbed America's attention and captured headlines — unfortunately, so has the clamor from neoconservatives urging President Obama... read more

Obama's Real Agenda: Israel's Dimona Nuclear Facility

As long as Islamists think that Obama is on their side, they'll refrain from attacking, keep the oil flowing and the prices low...read more

Feiglin on Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW0X84-Iqx4&feature=related

Security or History?

Post Modernism

Time for Jews to Abandon the Old Foundation Myth of Israel?

You cannot assume that your opponents are out to destroy your very existence, simply because they are trying to drive a hard bargain;

You cannot assume that all the fault and blame for the problem lies with your opponents;

You cannot let your self-esteem rest on showing your strength by being intransigent, prejudging outcomes, and inflicting defeats on your opponent....

read more

Hardliner vs Moderate

Senator Bob Menendez

Iran Slideshow

Full text of Netanyahu's foreign policy speech at Bar Ilan

Palestinian Response to Netanyahu's Speech

June 16, 2009 Khaled Abu Toameh, Journalist
The Palestinian leadership's reaction was so fierce that some of its senior representatives went as far as hurling personal insults against Netanyahu, calling him a "fraud," a "nobody" and a "liar."... read more

Mix oil and vinegar

Ladies and gentlemen, you may know of the Danish psychologist Nicolai Sennels, who recently said that Muslim integration in the West is simply impossible. Now, that is not a novel idea. A certain Frenchman said pretty much the same thing in 1959. I quote, “Those who recommend integration must be considered pea-brained even if they are scholars and scientists. Just try mixing oil and vinegar. Then shake the bottle. After a moment the two substances will separate again. Do you really believe French society could absorb ten million Muslims, who would be twenty million tomorrow and forty million the day after? In fact, my own village would no longer be Colombey-les-deux-Églises but would rather come to be known as Colombey-les-deux-mosques.”
This quote, you guessed it, is from none other than the former French President Charles de Gaulle.

Reaction to Netanyahu speech creates strange bedfellows

Ben Caspit, writing in the same newspaper, called the speech "one small step for the peace process, one giant leap for Binyamin Netanyahu...
read more

Evangelical support is eroding

Brian Schrauger is director of radio broadcasting for Israel World TV
Israel's military campaign in Gaza should have been named "8,000 is enough!" This would have communicated a determination to stop the barrage of missiles from Hamas... read more

A brilliant expose by PM Netanyahu

No Arab (or anyone for that matter who opposes Zionism) could possibly
agree to the very fair and reasoned analysis presented by Netanyahu!

There can never be a Palestinian "state" that does not include Jerusalem, that does not include "refugees" west of the Jordan River, that does not have the ability to "defend" itself, that recognizes Israel as a Jewish State, and that accepts substantive "adjustments" to the 1948/9 cease fire lines.

Now that Netanyahu has forthrightly confronted the irresolvable issues, Israel can continue to be mired in the echoes of Oslo or can move forward in an affirmative way with a real alternative to the complex array of two-state plans.

A Jewish View of Netanyahu’s Speech by Prof . Paul Eidelberg

worth reading....

Yes to road map. No to settlement freeze

Netanyahu's speech:
By Aluf Benn and Barak Ravid

Netanyahu will present a few conditions for the implementation of the
road map, above all a Palestinian recognition of Israel as the homeland
of the Jewish people. He will also demand that the future Palestinian
state be demilitarized
...read more

Occupation

An Israeli arrives at London?s Heathrow airport.

As he fills out the entry form, the immigration officer asks him: "OCCUPATION? "
The Israeli promptly replies: "NO, NO, JUST VISITING!"

Netanyahu May Favor Andorra-Like Solution

...The new state would be like Andorra, the small country between France and Spain, and would have recognized borders. Andorra, only 468 square kilometers (181 square miles) in size and with a population of 90,000, is a member of the United Nations, but responsibility for its defense lies with France and Spain...read more

Minister Yaalon rejects swift peace process

Creation of Palestinian state within two years may lead to establishment of Hamastan in West Bank, strategic affairs minister tells Washington audience; 'Let us begin to talk about building infrastructure for peace,' ... read more

Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam?

There is far more violence in the Bible than in the
Qur'an...read more

Send this link to Obama and Hillary

The identity of the Land

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MldnIxwUJo
another interview
Hebrew too strong to distribute.

Supreme Court Could Use More Jewish Law

The committee is chaired by Justice Minister Yaakov Ne'eman, and includes Environment Minister Gilad Erdan, Supreme Court Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch, Supreme Court justices Edmond Levi and Ayala Procaccia, and two Israel Bar Association members.... read more

Settlement Myth

by Charles Krauthammer, Friday, June 5, 2009

President Obama repeatedly insists that American foreign policy be conducted with modesty and humility. Above all, there will be no more "dictating" to other countries...In Middle East negotiations, he told al-Arabiya, America will henceforth "start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating."...read more

1919 Paris agreement between King Feisal and Weizmann

Haaretz talkback
By the principle of estoppel, the 1919 Paris agreement between King
Feisal and Weizmann which divided Palestine equally into a Jewish state
and an Arab state is the one and only defining instrument of
International Law.
Under this law, there is no `occupation`, there are no illegal
`settlement` etc. Jews are in fact obligated and encouraged to settle
the land. The only illegal action was by Churchill who `gave` the
Hashemites the land between the Jordan River and the Hejaz railway. In
creating the Kingdom of Jordan it was made illegal for Jews to own
property there. A clearly racist and illegal act. So in fact, the two
state solution was agreed 90 years ago! But only the Arab state was
created and it exceeded its allocated territory (from 50% to 78%).
It took the Hollocaust and a war of independence for the Jewish state to
be re-constituted!
The two state solution is still on `the books`, so enact it.

Chris Matthews feels a tingling going up and down his leg

Nothing President Obama accomplished on his recent tour can give any comfort to the Christians and Jews. It remains to be seen whether his "outreach to Muslims" will bear any but the bitterest of fruit...read more

Israel Hi-Tech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3xOqibQ5qI

Fatah says Hamas arresting its men in Gaza

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's faction accused Hamas Islamists on
Saturday of arresting some 150 Fatah activists in Gaza, in apparent
retaliation for raids that killed four Hamas men in the West Bank this
week....read more

The End of America’s Strategic Alliance with Israel?

by Caroline Glick...In 1922 the League of Nations mandated Great Britain
to facilitate the reconstitution of the Jewish commonwealth in the Land
of Israel on both sides of the Jordan River. The international
community's decision to work towards the reestablishment of Jewish
sovereignty in Israel owed to its recognition of the Jewish people's
legal, historic, and moral rights to our homeland.

Arab propaganda finds this basic and fundamental truth inconvenient. So
for the past 60 years, the Arabs have been advancing the fiction that
Israel's existence owes solely to European guilt over the Holocaust. As
far as the Arabs are concerned, the Jews have no legal, historic, or
moral right to what the Arabs see as Islamic land...
read more

Ex-Defense Minister Arens: 'We Must Build Up Settlements'

"I do not accept the terms of 'natural growth.' We are not living in
Judea and Samaria because of our 'natural growth,' but because of our
natural
rights."..read more

Obama Will Not Make a Difference

by Prof. Sami Alrabaa

Islamic terrorism and a severe global economic crisis added impetus to
his success. Rhetorically talented and charismatic figures usually
flourish in crises. But will rhetoric and charisma help Mr. Obama
succeed at home and in the Middle East?
read more

Shulamit Aloni / Israel is controlled by religious fanaticism

By Shulamit Aloni
...Rothschild explains why he refuses to support the establishment of a
Jewish state in the Land of Israel...
read more

So What's your solution?

By Moshe Arens
The defeat of Palestinian terrorism could open the possibility of
implementing any of the above four solutions...
read more

Good old Abe is at it again

Abraham Foxman
Israel should simply find a way to acknowledge that a solution to the conflict requires a Palestinian state...read more

Mideast survival guide

Mordechai Kedar
We need patience, ideology, and endurance to survive in Middle East...read more

Egypt launches 'moderate' satellite TV

..It will initially broadcast in Arabic and English, with a view to later expanding to programs that will include Hindi and Turkish...read more

Obama's Priorities

Global economic trauma and aftermath; Iraq; Iran; Afghanistan; Korea;
Pakistan; 1.5 million Arabs living in Judea and Samaria

US Jews discomfited by rightist bills

May. 27, 2009 by Haviv Rettig Gur, THE JERUSALEM POST
Several new legislative initiatives from right-wing parties are causing discomfort among mainstream US Jewish advocacy organizations.. read more

Demography is central to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute

Monday, June 1, 2009

EDITORIAL: Middle East Fertility Wars

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
What does Hillary Rodham Clinton have against Jewish babies?... read more

Ya'alon said

Educational Reform:
 The PA currently teaches Arab children that the entirety of Israel is an illegal colonialist entity, Yaalon said, and denies any historic Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. In addition, the PA teaches Jihad (holy war) against Israel and honors suicide bombers.

Changing the PA school system to teach the value of life, not of death, and to accurately portray Jewish history is crucial, he said.

Economic Reform:
 In order to create a viable economy, the PA must strengthen small businesses and create a stable middle class, Yaalon said.

Attempts to create a PA economy through international aid have failed due to a corrupt PA leadership that misappropriates funds, and terrorist groups that attempt to keep PA Arabs living in poverty, he said. To avoid the problems posed by corrupt leadership, the world should focus on PA businessmen and support their initiatives.

Political Reform:
Beyond creating a political entity, the PA must allow for freedom of expression, freedom of the press and protect human rights.

Yaalon referred to “the American mistake” of supporting strong dictators over true democratic activists. Activists who seek true democracy and freedom should win encouragement from the West, he said.

Legal Reform:
 The goal should be “One authority, one law, one weapon,” Yaalon said, referring to the disarming of rogue terrorist groups and the enforcement of law throughout the PA territories.

Security Reform:
 The PA must begin to truly fight terrorism, Yaalon said. Among other things, the PA must rid itself of the “revolving door” by which terrorists serve only light sentences, and the sentencing of terrorists who murdered Israelis for “harming the public interest” instead of “murder.” These things encourage terrorism, he said.

On November 15, 1988 Yasser Arafat declared independence for the state of Palestine.

Gershon Baskin , THE JERUSALEM POST

There is no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict other than "two states for two peoples." Any other proposal guarantees the continuation of the conflict and the end of the Zionist enterprise, the State of Israel...

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1243259515612&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter read more

Why 2-State Solution Didn't Work

(IsraelNN.com) A Knesset conference Tuesday brought MKs and military and
intelligence experts together to discuss reasons for the failure of the
"two-state solution."...
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/131607 read more

Alternatives to two-states

כנס חלופה לרעיון 'שתי מדינות לשני עמים'

http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/189733

Israel disavows MK's proposal to turn West Bank over to Jordan

... The setting up of a Palestinian state that lives in peace with
Israel "represents a supreme strategic interest for Jordan", the
minister was quoted as telling the Israeli
envoy....http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088343.html read more

PA: Settlers can become Palestinian citizens

...residents of Ma'aleh Adumim or Ariel who would rather stay in their homes could live under Palestinian rule and law, just like the Israeli Arabs who live among you. They could hold Palestinian and Israeli nationalities...read more

Welcome to Israel

Ted Belman
Israpundit.com

Jerusalem

011 972 (0)54 441 3252

Peres: Israeli concessions brought on rockets

...After the Gaza experience, Israel could not be expected to withdraw
from Judea and Samaria while rockets continued to threaten its citizens,
he said....read more

Obama said!!

" If we resume negotiations, as we plan to do, then I think that the
Palestinians will have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state; will
have to also enable Israel to have the means to defend itself. And if
those conditions are met, Israel's security conditions are met, and
there's recognition of Israel's legitimacy, its permanent legitimacy,
then I think we can envision an arrangement where Palestinians and
Israelis live side by side in dignity, in security, and in peace."

Death of Israel?

Obama may have held the first White House seder, but he's not planning
to spend next year in Jerusalem... read more
read more

two state woolsey a good republican!

Peace isn't Arab goal

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist  |  May 20, 2009

WHO FAVORS a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict?

President Obama does, of course, as he made clear in welcoming Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House on Monday. So does former president George W. Bush, who began advocating Palestinian statehood in 2002 and continued until his final days in office. The Democratic Party's national platform endorses a two-state solution; the Republican platform does, too. The UN Security Council unanimously reaffirmed its support a few days ago, and the European Union is strongly in favor as well... read more

Israel 'deaf' to two-state solution

"If we resume negotiations then I think the Palestinians will have to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and also enable Israel to have the means to defend itself," Netanyahu said.

Following the meeting, Netanyahu said: "I did not say two states for two peoples."

He also said that Israel did not want to govern the Palestinians.

"We want them to govern themselves [minus] a handful of powers that could endanger the state of Israel," Netanyau said... read more

Obama approach to Mideast peace makes U.S. less secure

By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
This is a lousy time to have a president in the White House who is, apparently, contemptuous of Winston Churchill... read more

Obama Iran Strategy

quoted from Haaretz
Obama set a rough timetable for his diplomatic outreach to Iran for the first time on Monday. "The important thing is to make sure there is a clear timetable," he said. "By the end of the year we should have some sense whether or not these discussions [involving Iran] are starting to yield significant benefits." Obama also said he was not closing off a "range of steps" against Iran, including sanctions, if it continues its nuclear program, which Washington believes is aimed at producing an atomic weapon but Tehran says is for peaceful purposes.

He also held out the prospect of tougher sanctions against Tehran "to ensure that Iran understands we are serious." Obama stressed that attempts by the Bush administration to isolate Iran had failed, "so what we are going to try to do is do something different." He said he hoped to begin negotiations with Tehran soon, after Iran holds elections next month. Iran's leaders have so far rebuffed his efforts to reach out to them and toughened their rhetoric.

Moslem Religious War against the Jews

http://www.democracybroadcastingnews.com/2009/05/palestinian-statehood-merely-tactic-of.html

Two States will lead to Collapse of Israel

Special Dispatch - No. 2358
Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon Abbas Zaki: Two-State Solution Will Lead to the Collapse of Israel: "With the two-state solution, in my opinion, Israel will collapse, because if they get out of Jerusalem, what will become of all the talk about the Promised Land and the Chosen People? What will become of all the sacrifices they made – just to be told to leave? They consider Jerusalem to have a spiritual status. The Jews consider Judea and Samaria to be their historic dream. If the Jews leave those places, the Zionist idea will begin to collapse...
read more

Abbas: Man of Peace??

Fear causes Abbas to delay new gov't... read more May. 14, 2009
Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST

Christians who face the Church's tragic legacy

Christians who face the Church's tragic legacy
May. 13, 2009
MALCOLM HEDDING , THE JERUSALEM POST

Like so many of my Israeli friends, I too have been disappointed with the pope's visit to Jerusalem this week... read more

PA has not changed

We Fooled You, We Intend to Destroy You. So Now What Will You Give Us?

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.

When talking among themselves and in Arabic, Middle East radicals often "let their hair down," to use the English-language idiom, meaning talk frankly about how they are fooling the dumb rubes in the West and what their real goals are... during the Oslo peace process era, from 1994 to 2000, Israel admitted more than 200,000 Palestinians to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip...read more

Read this Bibi

by Irwin N. Graulich
May 14, 2009

Monday, May 18th, 2009...a day that will live in infamy. How do you tell President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and Special Envoy Mitchell that a Palestinian State simply will not work? How does Benjamin Netanyahu explain to the American Liberal that compromise for the creation of a 49th Muslim nation is the kiss of death?....
http://www.jewishindy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9952  read more

All pigs must die

because they descend from Jews:
According to Egyptian Islamic scholar

by Itamar Marcus & Barbara Crook, May 13, 2009

All pigs alive today are descendants of the Jews who were turned into
pigs by Allah, according to a senior Egyptian religious leader. Since
all pigs are descendants of Jews, it is obligatory to kill all pigs,
says Sheikh Ahmed Ali Othman.

Presumably if pigs were merely animals, they would not face destruction.
It is their Jewish ancestry that condemns them to death...

read more

Jews first then Christians

Ignoring the Real Causes of Christian Exodus

Time reporter blames Israel and the West for Muslim intolerance

Pope Benedict’s visit to Israel this week has increased media attention on the plight of Christians in the Middle East and their declining...
read more

Demography Governs Policy

Demography has been used in Israel for decades by both left and right to
advance and justify policies in the territories and regarding borders.
Early advocates of a withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank, for
example, cited, in addition to moral arguments, the fear that Arabs
would eventually outnumber Jews in the land under Israeli control...

read more

NY Times: Advice for Bibi

>

An Agenda for Mr. Netanyahu

May 11, 2009

President Obama has set clear and appropriate priorities ahead of the visit to Washington on May 18 by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. read more

PA Muslim Leader

The Fatah-appointed sheikh, then-chairman of the PA's Islamic Law
Council, stated, "The Jews are destined to be persecuted, humiliated,
and tortured forever, and it is a Muslim duty to see to it that they
reap their due. No petty arguments must be allowed to divide us. Where
Hitler failed, we must succeed."

Tamimi has also called on Muslims to pray for the destruction of the
United States...

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/131305 read more

Will Bibi Cave-in?

If I were Netanyahu

Bibi must inform Obama Israel no shtetl that can be bullied into submission
Martin Sherman

“…An increasingly intolerant and hostile world…thinks sacrificing Israel’s vital interests or even the state itself would be a small price to pay for ending the global confrontation between the West and Islamic fundamentalism.” (Prof. Eytan Gilboa, October 2006)

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3714381,00.html   read more

Watchout

http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=0861ff3eabea1ceb73e4

Time for Arab Municipal Governance on the West Bank of the Jordan

Peace for Peace with Syria

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of Russian-language reporters Thursday that Israel will never withdraw from the Golan Heights.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1084397.html read more

Did Israel Policy Create Anti-Zionists??

The paradox of Israel's pursuit of might.
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 9 May 2009
Forty years ago, I was enraptured by Israel's courageous sense of mission. For me today, as for many, that idealism has palled. I first visited Israel in 1969. It was a time when much of the western world was still passionately enthused about the country's triumph in the 1967 six-day war. President Nasser had for years promised to sweep the Israelis into the sea. Instead, the tiny Jewish state, less than 20 years old, had engaged the armies of three Arab nations, and crushingly defeated them all. The Israelis successively smashed through Nasser's divisions on the western front, scaled and seized the Golan Heights, and snatched east Jerusalem and the West Bank in the face of Hussein's highly capable Jordanian army. Sinai was left strewn with the boots of fleeing Egyptians. read more

How Dare the Jews Dig in King David's Backyard?

Parks Fortify Israel's Claim to Jerusalem

ETHAN BRONNER and ISABEL KERSHNER

Published: Sunday, May 10, 2009 at 5:13 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, May 10, 2009 at 5:13 a.m.

JERUSALEM — Israel is quietly carrying out a $100 million, multiyear development plan in some of the most significant religious and national heritage sites just outside the walled Old City here as part of an effort to strengthen the status of Jerusalem as its capital.

Click to enlarge

Palestinians sit among billboards promoting park space on land widely seen as the ancient capital of the biblical King David.

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

The plan, parts of which have been outsourced to a private group that is simultaneously buying up Palestinian property for Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, has drawn almost no public or international scrutiny. However, certain elements related to it — the threatened destruction of unauthorized Palestinian housing in the redevelopment areas, for example — have brought widespread condemnation.

But as Pope Benedict XVI prepares to visit Christian sites here this week and as the Obama administration promotes a Palestinian state with parts of Jerusalem as its capital, Israeli activity in the area, known as the holy basin — land both inside and just outside the Old City — will be cause for growing concern and friction.

"Everything Israel does now will be highly contentious," said Robert H. Serry, the United Nations special Middle East coordinator, on a recent tour of East Jerusalem. He warned the Israeli authorities "not to take actions that could pour oil on the fire."

http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20090510/ZNYT03/905103009/1042/NEWS?Title=Parks-Fortify-Israel-x2019-s-Claim-to-Jerusalem

Global Psychosis

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/

The Hamas 'Peace' Gambit By Charles Krauthammer]

Lovely Balanced Headline

New York Times

---

May 7, 2009

World Briefing | Middle East

Gaza Militants and Israel Exchange Fire

By ISABEL KERSHNER

Militants in Gaza fired five mortar shells into a field in southern Israel on Wednesday, and Israel retaliated with airstrikes on three smuggling tunnels along Gaza’s border with Egypt, the Israeli military said. Palestinian medical officials said that four Palestinians were wounded in the Israeli strikes. The military wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for the mortar fire, according to the Palestinian news agency Maan. On Monday, the Syria-based leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, told The New York Times in an interview that his group was not firing at Israel currently as “part of an evaluation of the movement to serve the people’s interest.” Israel Radio reported Wednesday that Mr. Meshal had been criticized by other Palestinian groups for his remarks.

What Are the Mullahs Up To?

May 7, 2009 6:30 AM | Nicholas Guariglia
Foreign Policy Analyst and Columnist

What Are the Mullahs Up To?

Be forewarned: the possibility exists that Ayatollah Khamenei is using Mir-Hossein Mousavi as a sham presidential contestant for Iran's upcoming presidential "election" June 12^th.  Supreme Leader Khamenei could use a hypothetical Mousavi presidency as a ploy to fool the world into believing Iran has turned a positive corner — all the while, the mullahs will simply be buying time to ascertain nuclear weaponry.  http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/05/what-are-the-mullahs-up-to.php  read more