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US President Barack Obama's national security adviser, Gen. James Jones has said in a CNN interview that the US may be ready to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if the country would be ready to return to negotiations regarding its nuclear program. In an interview on CNN Wednesday, Jones said “the door’s open” for a meeting between Iran and the US. "One thing they might do is return our three hikers. That would be an important gesture. It could lead to better relations,” Jones said, speaking about an opening move to jumpstart discussions.

The Israeli intelligence website DebkaFile has reported that Obama is now seriously considering an attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities. His change of heart is not, according to Debka, prompted by the Israeli Netanyahu -- whose nation is most directly threatened by Iranian nukes -- but by an ultimatum from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who told Obama that his nation could not tolerate Iranian WMD, and would develop its own if Iran was allowed to acquire them. ~snip~ Thus, without first taking serious steps to check Palestinian terrorism, he has pushed for the two-state solution that would inevitably lead...

ADEISSEH, Lebanon – Lebanese and Israeli troops exchanged fire Tuesday in a fierce border battle that killed a senior Israeli officer, two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist — underlining how easily tensions can re-ignite along the frontier where Israel and Hezbollah fought a war four years ago. It was the worst fighting since 2006 in the area, where Israeli and Lebanese soldiers patrol within shouting distance of each other, separated by the U.N.-drawn Blue Line boundary. The fighting flared into Israeli tank, helicopter and artillery strikes near this Lebanese town, but ended after several hours and there was no sign...

It wasn't Hezbollah; it was the LAF that killed one Israeli officer and seriously wounded another. It wasn't in Lebanon; it was in Israel that they were attacked.The IDF had notified the UNIFIL liaison that it would be working on the Israeli side of the Blue Line - the international border accepted by the UN Security Council in June 2000 - clearing brush to ensure that there had been no Hezbollah infiltration and removing a tree with a crane. The work was routine and UNIFIL routinely notified the LAF. And the LAF fired on the IDF. After giving UNIFIL time...

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) – Jordan said it had evidence that the rockets that hit Aqaba came from the Sinai. Egypt yesterday said that that was “Impossible”. Israel has more or less openly accused Hamas, which has denied any involvement. Without any definitive explanation for the incident, accusations and counteraccusations are flying all over the place after several ‘Grad’ rockets hit the Israeli town of Eilat and its close neighbour, Aqaba, in Jordan, where it killed one person, injuring five. "We can now say without hesitation that the Grad rocket was launched from Sinai," said a Jordanian official close to the investigation...

Israeli Left and Obama administration offer to serve up Israel to the Palestinians for negotiations that have no chance of success. The Israeli Left is on a collision course with the Obama administration. It is reportedly trying to undermine negotiations between the Netanyahu government and Fatah. The Obama administration is earnestly seeking to initiate them. According to an unnamed eyewitness interviewed by Israel Radio, during a July 8 meeting between Kadima Council Chairman and former vice premier Haim Ramon, and Fatah chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, Ramon urged Erekat to tell Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas to reject the Netanyahu government’s offer...

At least four people are reportedly injured after a series of rockets were fired at the southern Israeli town of Eilat. A series of explosions were heard in and around the resort town in far southern Israel near the borders with Jordan and Egypt. Israeli media say five rockets were fired at the city by militant groups either in Jordan or the Sinai Desert. The attacks come three days after militants in Gaza fired a Katyusha rocket at the Israeli city of Ashkelon, and a more crude rocket into the Negev Desert. In retaliation Israeli forces on Saturday bombed two...

Speaking in Turkey on Tuesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron slammed Israel and called Gaza a “prison camp.” (Apparently Gaza is the first prison camp with luxury shopping malls.) The British Foreign Office has been taking the blame for this betrayal of Israel, but they’re claiming they were as surprised as anyone. Now, a high-placed and knowledgeable source has informed me that it was Obama’s people who put the slamming of Israel into Cameron’s speech. Cameron also said that “the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable.” He didn’t mention the ties of the Turkish-backed IHH “activists” on...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the Obama administration on Saturday to impose a solution to the Middle East conflict that would give his people an independent state. "Mr. President [Barack Obama] and members of the American administration, since you believe in this [an independent Palestinian state], it is your duty to take steps toward a solution and to impose this solution," Abbas said in a speech.

SNIPPET: "Police are working to figure out the origin of the rocket that was fired from the Gaza Strip Saturday evening and exploded near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, without causing damage or injures. A total of four rockets and two mortar shells were fired at Israel on Saturday, causing no injuries. An initial examination revealed that the rocket fired at Nahal Oz was manufactured using professional means, most likely outside of the borders of the Gaza Strip. The rocket had a diameter of 115 millimeters, and police sappers were working to locate fragments of it to be tested."

If you want to know what makes President Barack Obama tick, take a look at his explanation for why Israelis have turned against him. During an interview with Israel’s Channel Two, Obama was asked why he thinks Israelis mistrust him. “Some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein,” he told the interviewer, “and that creates suspicion. Some of it may have to do with the fact that I have actively reached out to the Muslim community, and I think that sometimes — particularly in the Middle East — there’s the feeling of the friend...

Though still short of full diplomatic recognition, move raises representation to level of PLO missions in many European countries and Canada. The United States State Department has upgraded the Palestinian Liberation Organization's mission in Washington, the PLO's U.S. representative said on Thursday. The upgrade, which will give the PLO Mission to the U.S. the status of 'Delegation General', became effective beginning July 20, 2010. Ambassador Maen Rashid Areikat, the PLO's representative to the United States, said that the decision was preceded by several consultations made over the past year between the PLO Mission and the Obama administration.

In our politically correct, relativistic and multicultural Western universe, there has been a systematic effort to ignore the true intentions of Abbas and the Palestinians. While the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict may be an inconvenient headache for the U.S. and the Europeans, and they are therefore willing to ignore Palestinian blemishes and intentions, a Palestinian state, with “unabashed” terrorist aims as stated in their charter, poses existential threats for Israel. Instead of focusing on Israeli confidence-building measures, it is time the West begins to look seriously at the implications of a Palestinians state. The U.S., as an honest broker, must demand guarantees...

July 19, 2010 Special Dispatch No.3106 SNIPPET: "Al-Qaeda Second-in-Command Ayman Al-Zawahiri: The Only Hope for Palestine is to Depose the 'Arab Zionists' In a new 1-hour 3-minute audio recording, Al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman Al-Zawahiri reaffirms Al-Qaeda's basic strategy regarding Palestine and promised imminent victory in Afghanistan, and addresses words of praise and encouragement to the jihadist groups in North Africa, Somalia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The video, dated Rajab 1431 (June-July 2010), was produced by Al-Qaeda's media wing, Al-Sahab, and posted on jihadist websites on July 19, 2010. Despite the date shown on the release, it...

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, branded a "moderate" by the international community, let his true colors show during a recent meeting with writers and journalists when he stated that he would favor a pan-Arab military offensive against the Jewish state. The official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on Tuesday wrote that when Abbas met recently with media figures at the home of the Palestinian ambassador to Jordan, he recounted that during an Arab League Summit in Libya in March he told his fellow leaders that he still preferred war against Israel, but could not do it alone.

Here they are, the people the MSM has been calling “peace activists” since the IDF raid on the Gaza flotilla…

Column One: Weathering the approaching storm By CAROLINE B. GLICK 18/06/2010 Israel is endangered today as it has never been before. Israel is endangered today as it has never been before. The Turkish-Hamas flotilla two weeks ago precipitated a number of dangerous developments. Rather than attend to all of them, Israel’s leadership is devoting itself almost exclusively to contending with the least dangerous among them while ignoring the emerging threats with the potential to lead us to great calamities. Since the Navy’s lethal takeover of the Mavi Marmara, Israel has been stood before an international diplomatic firing squad led by...

The Middle East is now teetering on the brink of war because a vast international mob has been unloosed, with the tacit approval of Barack Hussein Obama. That is the real meaning of the Gaza martyrdom stunt of May 31, 2010. That purposeful provocation is not past. The Gaza suicide operation is still being used all over the Middle East and Europe to whip up hatred and violence. As Mark Steyn just reported from a dingy cafe in Algeria, "I can just about make out the plasma TV up in the corner on which Jimmy Carter, dubbed into Arabic, is...

Lost amid the hand-wringing over Israel's botched flotilla raid last month and speculation about the diplomatic fallout for the Jewish state has been perhaps the most significant development, namely the resurgence of Hamas. On political and financial life support not even a month ago, Hamas has become the face of the Muslim world's newest cause celebre: ending the "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza. This newfound determination cannot end a "humanitarian crisis" that didn't exist in the first place, but it just might end the political and economic crises that had been besetting Hamas over the past year. While understandable on the...

SNIPPET: "The navy will operate under the assumption that groups of provocateurs are aboard any future ships that try to break the Israel-imposed sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, Deputy Commander of the Navy Rear-Admiral Rani Ben-Yehuda told The Jerusalem Post on Monday."