Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House said on Tuesday that it was "dismayed" over Israeli approval to expand the Gilo settlement in Jerusalem and sharply criticized the ongoing evictions and demolition of Palestinian homes. "At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. U.S. President Barack Obama has urged Israel to curb settlement expansion as a gesture of goodwill to Palestinians in an effort to restart the peace process. Israel on Tuesday approved the building of 900 homes...

Defense Minister and Labor chairman Ehud Barak on Monday said that Israel would expand its military operation in the Gaza Strip until all the goals were achieved. He spoke at a special Knesset session attended, among others, by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu.

Two weeks before the U.S. election, hostility toward President George W. Bush has reached new heights internationally. A joint poll taken by 10 newspapers worldwide reveals that most of those surveyed oppose Bush's policies, want to see him defeated, and paint his influence on the global situation in the gloomiest colors. Israelis, perhaps not surprisingly, are alone in their support of the American president. While in other countries, 60-80 percent of those asked said they believed the war in Iraq to have been a mistake, in Israel most thought it justified. While more than half of those polled elsewhere stated...

The recent announcement of a deal for Israel to acquire thousands of Precision-Guided-Munitions (PGM) went largely unheralded by Elite-Media, who mostly yawned and ho-hummed the sale. One source, the Seattle Post Intelligencer did little more than the intellectually lazy approach, recycling an AP report but the numbers in the report were very telling: 3000 2000-pound laser-guided bombs, 1000 1000-pound laser-guided bombs and 500 500-pound precision-guided bombs. The most important number noted above is the huge number of 2000-pound PGM’s – these are heavy, penetrating munitions needed to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. The PGM’s also have a satellite-targeting option allowing the...