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A fourth straight day of rioting in Acre ended on Saturday with Jews torching an empty Arab house, three Jews lightly wounded by Arab stone-throwers, and three other Jews arrested for throwing stones at policemen and Arabs. Since Wednesday, police have arrested some 30 rioters, both Jewish and Arab. Some on them were subsequently released because they are minors. Police have also used water cannons to disperse stone-throwing rioters.... The day began without incident and many Acre residents hoped the violence was finally at an end. But a few hours after sundown, it erupted anew.....

Almost half the members of the Opec oil cartel are considering an emergency meeting in Vienna next month as oil prices dropped to their lowest level in nearly a year. Almost half the members of cartel have in the past few days called on the group to act to halt the slide before their next official meeting scheduled to take place in Algeria in late December. Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Iraq, Venezuela and Ecuador, whose economies tend to be most dependent on high oil prices and whose ministers are among the most hawkish of the 13-member group, have all lobbied for...

Shares on the main Arab stock markets have fallen sharply amid concern the financial crisis in the US and Europe is spreading to the Middle East. Egypt's main index dropped by more than 16%, while shares in Saudi Arabia lost about 8% cent of their value. Both markets have dropped by more than 40% since the beginning of 2008. Analysts spoke of panic in markets, with investors concerned about the future for banks, and companies exposed to a faltering property market. While billions of dollars were wiped off share values in the Arab world, the Israeli stock exchange rose sharply...

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear assembly on Saturday passed a resolution urging all Middle East nations to renounce atom bombs in a vote most Arabs boycotted over amendments they felt took pressure off Israel. The vote was 82-0 with 13 abstentions but disenchantment reigned after days of wrangling between Israel and Western nations on one hand and Arab and Islamic states on the other that polarized a body that normally operates on consensus. The rare ballot at the weeklong annual assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency was non-binding but highlighted deep tensions over Israel's presumed nuclear might and...

[snip] Over the years since I first saw Obama speak I met him about half a dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events in Chicago including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward Said was the keynote speaker. In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The last time I spoke to Obama was in the winter...

France's foreign minister says that the world knows Israel will attack Iran before it can develop a nuclear weapon. As Middle East correspondent, Ben Knight, reports Bernard Kouchner was speaking with the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz ahead of his visit to Israel. The foreign minister says he doesn't believe a nuclear weapon would give any immunity to Iran, because Israel would hit the country first - something the Iranians, and everybody else knows. Mr Kouchner says the solution lies in dialogue and sanctions against Iran. Yesterday Iran rejected a proposal to accept foreign supplies of nuclear fuel for its reactors, saying...

Iran will not stop uranium enrichment even if it is guaranteed supplies of nuclear fuel from abroad, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Sunday.

In the vice presidential debate between Biden and Palin, Biden said the strangest and most ILL-INFORMED thing I've ever heard about lebanon in my life: "When we kicked - along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack Obama said, move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know - if you don't, Hezbollah will control it. Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel." What on earth is he talking about? The U.S. and France may have kicked Hezbollah...

EDITORIAL NEWS The following story is incomplete, obviously. When I was preparing the story about Palestine I noticed the Bluecher story attached to it. By that time I had recycled the part of the page with the beginning of the story. In this case I figure an incomplete story is better than none at all.

IDF Northern Command chief says in any future war Israel would use ' disproportionate' force on Lebanese villages from which Hizbullah will fire rockets at its cities. 'From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases,' Maj.-Gen. Eisenkot tells Yedioth Ahronoth Reuters Israel would use "disproportionate" force to destroy Lebanese villages from which Hizbullah guerrillas fired rockets at its cities in any future war, an Israeli general said in remarks published on Friday.

The US Department of Defense has approved the sale of 25 F-35 stealth-enabled Joint Strike Fighters (JSF) to the Israeli Air Force (IAF), Israel Radio reported Tuesday evening.

Under the Palestinian regime Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses by Muslims. There are many examples of intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycotts, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion. Palestinian Authority (PA) officials are directly responsible for many of the human rights violations.

Let us imagine that we were all to wake up tomorrow morning to the incredible news that the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority had concluded a peace treaty, including agreement by both parties on the issues of water rights, borders and the status of Jerusalem. A Jewish state and a Palestinian state would live forever, side by side, in blissful peace. The violence plaguing the Middle East would end for good; Iran would cease both beating its war drums and calling for the end of "the Zionist entity"; and calm would prevail over a united Iraq and an...

LEESBURG, Va. (JTA)—A McCain administration would discourage Israeli-Syrian peace talks and refrain from actively engaging in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. That was the message delivered over the weekend by two McCain advisers—Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Richard Williamson, the Bush administration’s special envoy to Sudan—during a retreat hosted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy at the Lansdowne Resort in rural Virginia. One of Barack Obama’s representatives—Richard Danzig, a Clinton administration Navy secretary—said the Democratic presidential candidate would take the opposite approach on both issues. In an interview with the Atlantic magazine...

Tzipi Livni adopting "Balls of Steel" as her image for campaign Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 21 September 2008 It isn't clear if Tzipi Livni is following the recommendation of her PR team or came up with it by herself, but in any case it is becoming rapidly clear that she has decided to adopt a "balls of steel" image to prove she is the rightful heir to Ariel Sharon's mantle. On Friday she took a vocal position calling for PM Olmert to resign ASAP. Today she vetoed delaying Olmert's resignation until after President Peres' trip to the UN this week...

A top adviser of Iran's supreme leader has warned that in the event of war all ships passing through the oil-rich Gulf region would be within the reach of Iran's missiles, a government newspaper reported on Thursday.

Middle East Apologetics by: Lance Nation, September 18, 2008 In a recent panel at the Brookings Institution, Dr. Kenneth Pollack proposed a new strategy for dealings between the United States and the Middle East. “The United States cannot run away from the problems in the Middle East. We must reach a balanced long-term relationship,” stated Dr. Pollack, a Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. Greatly simplifying the ideas in his new book, A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East, Dr. Pollack argued...

The US Department of Defense has notified Congress of a potential sale of 1,000 smart bombs capable of penetrating underground bunkers to Israel, which would likely be used in the event of a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. The notification of the possible sale to Congress was made over the weekend by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), the branch of the Pentagon responsible for evaluating foreign military sales. Congress has 30 days to object the deal. The deal is valued at $77 million and the principal contractor will be Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. The bomb which Israel has...

Eight years of Bush administration foreign policy have finally nailed shut the coffin of mass international support and admiration for American foreign policy, completing the 180 degree shift from the dubious post-WWII image of compassionate liberators to that of the most dangerous nation on earth. Estimation of the US in the Arab world has plummeted to even greater depths than during Bill Clinton's presidency following the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the unashamed disregard for Palestinian dignity, with the terrifying spectacle of mass shoe swatting and flag burning ready to ignite in any given place across the region at...

Saudi Arabia walked out on OPEC yesterday. It said it would not honor the cartel's production cut. It was tired of rants from Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the well-dressed oil minister from Iran. As the world's largest crude exporter, the kingdom in the desert took its ball and went home. As the Saudis left the building the message was shockingly clear. According to The New York Times, “Saudi Arabia will meet the market’s demand,” a senior OPEC delegate said. “We will see what the market requires and we will not leave a customer without oil." OPEC will still have...

No they didn't get a brand spanking new SWAT division with high tech GPS and communication systems. They have instead allowed a Saudi style religious police division to form, all with the backing of 2000 clerics and tribal leaders.

The United States does not expect Iran to receive a Russian air defense system this year, a Pentagon official said on Tuesday of the shield that would make any strike on Tehran's nuclear sites more difficult Eric Edelman, the Pentagon's undersecretary for policy, was responding to questions at a Senate hearing about reports that Iran would soon acquire an advanced Russian anti-aircraft missile system. "To the best of my knowledge, I don't believe we think the missiles referred to ... are in fact slated for delivery by the end of this year," Edelman told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "But...

Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE), has a pro-Israel reputation and, in a recent interview with Shalom television, even identified himself as "a Zionist," but it is open to question what the late Menachem Begin would have to say about that designation for the Delaware senator. According to reports in the Jerusalem Post by Moshe Zak and another in Time magazine, Messrs Biden and Begin had a serious confrontation in the summer of 1982 in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the issue of Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. According to Mr. Zak, a former editor of...

AMMAN -- With the U.S. presidential elections just two months away, many Arabs and Muslims are increasingly worried that a victory for another conservative Republican administration will exacerbate the tensions and turbulence that have followed the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The events and speeches at the Republican Party convention in Minnesota, which endorsed the candidacy of Arizona Senator John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, were given special attention in the Arab media, as commentators voiced fears that a McCain administration would pursue, perhaps more belligerently, the path of the current government. As...

An Islamic court in Shiraz, Iran , has just convicted two men of being infidels. Their crime? Converting to Christianity. The possible sentence? Death. Not too far away in Saudi Arabia , an outraged father recently hacked his own daughter to death for the same "abomination." In the daily drumbeat of Mideast news, there is one story of historic proportion that goes nearly unreported: the persecution and systematic destruction in the Islamic world of some of the world's oldest Christian communities.

WASHINGTON – Senator McCain's running mate in the US presidential election, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, met with the board of directors of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Wednesday and expressed her admiration for Israel. The meeting took place inside Palin's hotel, sources said. A campaign official would not say who asked for the meeting, but said it was geared towards putting the American Jewish community at ease over her understanding of US-Middle East relations. "That's obviously going to be an issue," the aide said. "It's not like being the senator from New York, obviously. But these aren't issues...

Link only, AP.

GOP Sen. John McCain is "absentminded" and "terrible" and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, doesn't have any appropriate experience. Sen. Barack Obama, by contrast, is "highly educated" and "eloquent" and would serve the world much better and improve America's overall situation. And Sen. Joe Biden is a "very respectable" man with a "good reputation." All this according to an interview broadcast this week on Iranian state-run media. "[McCain] doesn't know anything, poor thing. He is terrible. Let me tell you, he's awful," stated Mohammad-Ali Fardanesh, a political science professor at Shahid Behshti University, which is an Iranian state-funded school....

Finally we are seeing some unity in the battle with Islam. Which is a battle to protect life as we know it, for our future generations. Israel, unlike our politicians is not afraid to tell the world the truth. It is a worldwide jihad. Whether Muslims use politics or violence to take over, it does not matter. Either way we lose. The battle is on.

September 02, 2008, 7:00 a.m. Another Rumor of WarMeanwhile, in Iran . . . By James S. Robbins A report in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, picked up in the Jerusalem Post and Tehran Times, states that members of the Dutch intelligence service AIVD conducting infiltration and espionage against the Iranian nuclear program have been pulled from their positions because they believe that a U.S. attack on Iranian WMD targets is imminent. The Dutch? Anti-Iranian infiltration and espionage? Who knew? Way to go guys, seriously. Respect. Couple that with a recent report that the government of Israel has decided...

Security officials expressed concern Monday over statements reportedly made by US Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Biden regarding Iran's nuclear program. Army Radio reported that the Delaware senator was heard saying in closed conversations with Jerusalem officials three years ago that he was firmly opposed to an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reportedly claimed that Israel would likely have to come to terms with a nuclear Iran. He reportedly expressed doubt over the effectiveness of economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic and said he was against the opening of an...

Any wisdom appreciated

Lyndon Baines Johnson, born 100 years ago this week, came from a part of the country where Jews were about as common as a herd of cattle in Manhattan. But in 1939, while still a young and relatively powerless congressman, Johnson was moved enough by reports of Jewish suffering in Europe to begin raising money and pulling whatever strings were necessary - not all of them legal - to save as many Jews as he could from the Nazis. Over the next few years, hundreds of Jews were issued counterfeit passports and visas and brought to Johnson's home state of...

Giuliani -- the GOP keynoter next week -- opens a new line of attack on Obama in an interview with Maggie Haberman: "I think that his position in dealing with the issues that are important to Israel, like they are important to me in America, is -- (the) best and kindest thing you can say is, ambiguity," he said, clearly referring to security.

Click HERE to play video. TRANSCRIPT: August 19, 2008 Clip No. 1840 Women in Gaza Prepare to Become Suicide Bombers Following are excerpts from a TV report on female Palestinian suicide bombers, which aired on Al-Jadid/New TV on August 19, 2008. Reporter: This elderly Palestinian woman, called Fatima Al-Najjar, used to lead women’s demonstrations at the entrance to the town of Beit Hanoun in the winter of 2006, calling upon the occupation to leave her town and stop the killing and destruction. But despite her advanced age, she decided to take a different path. Fatima Al-Najjar: I sacrifice myself for...

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to arrive on Monday in another attempt to advance the Annapolis process and produce some kind of Israeli-Palestinian document before the end of the year. Slideshow: Pictures of the week Israeli diplomatic officials said Saturday night that if Rice was trying to get the Israelis and Palestinians to agree on a document to be presented at the United National General Assembly in mid-September spelling out what the sides had already agreed upon, she would be unlikely to find an ally in Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Rice is scheduled to meet with Livni...

The son of one of the most revered leaders of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has renounced his religion to move to America and become an evangelical Christian. Mosab Hassan Yousef, 30, said that his decision to abandon his Muslim faith and denounce his father's organisation had exposed his family to persecution in his home town of Ramallah and endangered his own life. But despite the cost, Mr Yousef told The Daily Telegraph that he is convinced that speaking out about the problems of Islam and the "evil" he witnessed back home would help to address the "messed-up situation" in...

Fears that Russia might sell advanced weaponry to Syria kicked up a mini-storm of concern in Israel on Thursday. Syrian President Bashar Assad, in Russia for talks with President Dmitry Medvedev, has been campaigning to acquire weapons systems that include long-range surface-to-surface missiles, according to Russian media reports. The news of Assad's reported ambitions prompted immediate hand-wringing among Israeli officials and analysts. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel was "analyzing the ramifications" of Assad's visit.

Saudi Columnist: Bomb Iran Now, Let Chips Fall Where They May In his August 4, 2008 column in the liberal Arab e-journal Elaph, Saudi columnist Saleh Al-Rashed argued that the Gulf states should urge the West to attack Iran before it acquires nuclear weapons. Following are excerpts from the column: [1] A Nuclear Iran is Like a Nuclear Bin Laden "'One cannot avoid the inevitable' - this adage came to mind when I read the pronouncement by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohammad 'Ali Ja'fari, who said: 'My country is easily capable of closing the Straits of Hormuz, the...

For many years, any talk of preemption against a nuclearizing Iran was certain to elicit primarily harsh and uniform condemnation. In some circles, such talk amounted to nothing less than a shamelessly proposed "aggression." Other critics, although somewhat more charitable in their particular denunciations, still expressed guarded sentiments that any Israeli or American defensive first-strikes against Iran would be "premature." Now, finally, several authoritative figures are speaking plainly about the stark choices still open to Israel: preemption or apocalypse. Early in July, Meir Amit, a former director of Mossad, spoke unambiguously of Israel's imperative to use military force against Iran....

The long-term outcomes of the current Russian-Georgian war will be felt far and wide, from Afghanistan to Iran, and from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. The war is a mid-sized earthquake which indicates that the geopolitical tectonic plates are shifting, and nations in the Middle East, including Israel, need to take notice.

Everyone watching the Presidential race is talking about the "debate" at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church. But no one and neither of the candidates said what should have been said. And that's that John McCain had no business being at a church of a man who legitimizes and panders to the same country he says he will not: Syria and its leader, Bashar Assad. Rick Warren not only went to Syria, he praised it as a moderate country and expressed his admiration of it. Maybe next he'll do the same for Myanmar and Sudan.

Russia considers nuclear missiles for Syria, Baltic Russia is planning to install Iskander surface missiles in Syria and its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, in a response to United States missile interceptors in Poland and U.S.-Israeli military aid to Georgia, an Israeli news agency reported on Monday. Moscow seems to be eying Poland, the Middle East, and possibly Ukraine, as the main arenas for its reprisals, as Russia is reported to plan arming warships, submarines and long-range bombers in the Baltic and Middle East with nuclear warheads, DEBKAfile reported. The plan includes the establishment of big Russian military, naval and air...

an has launched its first domestically-manufactured satellite into orbit, reports say. An Iranian news network, IRINN, showed footage of what it said was a communications satellite named Safir-e Omid (Hope Envoy) being launched.

----SNIP A Nuclear Iran is Like a Nuclear Bin Laden "'There's no avoiding what there's no avoiding' - this adage came to mind when I read the pronouncement by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohammad 'Ali Ja'fari, who said: 'My country is easily capable of closing the Straits of Hormuz, the main passageway for oil freighters, if the country is attacked due to its nuclear program.' "In my estimation, confronting this country, which is trying to gain the time necessary to acquire nuclear weapons, is unavoidable. The possession of nuclear weapons by a state like Iran, which is ideological...

(IsraelNN.com) Virginia Republican Congressman Eric Cantor, whom Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain is considering naming as his vice-presidential running mate, said in a speech last November that Jerusalem is "Ground Zero in the global battle between tyranny and democracy" and is "Israel's lifeblood." Speaking during a visit to Israel for the "One Jerusalem" event, which protested the Annapolis summit, Cantor said: "Jerusalem is not merely the capital of Israel but the spiritual capital of Jews and Christians everywhere. It's the site of the First and Second Temples, which housed the Holy of Holies, and it's the direction in which...

Submitted for your amusement, a tale of two columnists, as different as it is humanly possible to be in their view of the Middle East. First, four quotes from the columnist who is second to none in his support for Israel: 1) “Yes, I love the state of Israel. It is everything a Western democracy should be at this point in history: brave, resourceful, tough, realistic, in search of peace but ready for war. It is a King Arthur of nations which is showing the rest of us how a brave and free people ought to live.…” 2) “I have...

Kuwait has activated its Emergency War Plan after an armada of US naval battle groups headed for the Persian Gulf, Middle East Times reports. The report comes after DEBKAfiles claimed on Monday that the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the USS Ronald Reagan, and the USS Iwo Jima are sailing toward the Persian Gulf to reinforce the US strike forces in the region. The US naval force is accompanied by a British Royal Navy carrier battle group and a French nuclear hunter-killer submarine. The deployment is believed to be the largest naval task force assembled by the United States and its allies...

Following the Russian basketball victory over Iran in the second day of competition at the Beijing Olympics, both teams - including the coaches - congratulated each other by hugging and shaking hands, despite the fact that the coach of the Russian national team was an Israeli. The game was the first time in years that Iran had not boycotted a sporting event in which it would compete against Israeli sports figures. Prior to his position as the Russian Olympic coach, David Blatt was a coach for Maccabi Tel Aviv. The friendly post-game exchange was far from hidden, with one photographer...

Former Israeli cabinet minister and respected international figure Natan Sharansky warned American Jews this week that voting for Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the upcoming presidential election would risk Israel's future. Speaking on Shalom TV, a Jewish cable network that reaches 18 million American households, Sharansky avoided the rampant conspiracy theories regarding Obama, but did note that his lack of a positive record vis-a-vis Israel should raise concerns. With Obama, said Sharansky, "nobody can know for sure what will be. It can happen to be good. It can happen to be very bad. It's a risk." Also of concern is...