Free Republic

JERUSALEM -- Palestinian negotiators drafting an agreement behind the scenes with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office have made clear they will not accept any final peace deal with Israel unless the Jewish state forfeits the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site, WND has learned. According to a report in Israel's Yediot Aharonot daily yesterday, Olmert is willing to discuss joint Israeli-Palestinian control over the Temple Mount complex. The report didn't state the positions of the Palestinian side on the issue. A chief Palestinian negotiator, speaking to WND on condition his name be withheld, said yesterday, "there can be no agreement with...

Tel Aviv – Israel's military, refusing to treat this past summer's battle with Hizbullah in Lebanon as a war, kept its commanders away from the front and sent soldiers on poorly-planned missions. An investigation by an outside panel concluded that the General Staff did not treat the Hizbullah rocket strikes against Israel as a war, rather a security exercise. The report, by a team led by [Res.] Maj. Gen. Yoram Yair, said commanders relayed unclear orders and failed to fulfill even tactical missions. Yair focused on the army's Division 91, commanded by Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch, but examined system-wide failures...