ISRAEL - IRAN - SYRIA - HAMAS - HEZBOLLAH - WWWIII?

Looking at and regarding all predications and polls, in a few weeks Peres will task Livni with forming a coalition in Israel, I suppose.

An AIPAC spokesman said Gov. Palin told its members she would "work to expand and deepen the strategic partnership between the U.S. and Israel."

Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal has left Damascus to live in Sudan, at Syria's request, due to Syria's desire to advance indirect peace talks with Israel, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reported yesterday.

Syrian President Bashar Assad declared Tuesday that indirect negotiations with Israel have brought "the possibility of peace," although the two countries still have quite a way to go toward that goal.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Syria on Wednesday for a two-day visit aimed at sealing a rapprochement with the former colony and giving a push to its renewed peace talks with Israel.

In a teleconference held with members of the Jewish press on Wednesday Delaware Senator and Democratic Party Vice Presidential Nominee Joseph Biden said that Israel must remain a strong ally of the United States, however its decisions "must be made in Jerusalem".

Biden also expressed his support of Israel's right to defend itself, saying "Israel has the right to defend itself and it doesn't have to ask, just as any other free and independent country.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Wednesday that east Jerusalem could be the capital of a future Palestinian state.

"Our basic position is that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, but that we can find a formula under which certain neighborhoods, heavily populated Arab neighborhoods, could become, in a peace agreement, part of the Palestinian capital and it will of course include all of the neighboring [Arab] villages around Jerusalem," Barak told Al-Jazeera.

He also roundly rejected that the right of return for Palestinian refugees would ever be accepted by Israel.

"No Israeli prime minister, from the right or left...will agree to accept even a single Palestinian refugee into Israel based on the right of return," he said. "That was my position when I was prime minister, it was the position of every other prime minister, from Rabin to Peres, from Shamir to Begin, and it will be the position of Israel in the future."

Nevertheless, the defense minister said that certain issues relating to Palestinian refugees could be resolved.
[...]
Barak admitted that Israel would ideally want the security barrier to mark the borders of a future Palestinian state.[...]

September 4, 2008

In macho Israel, woman within reach of premiership

For the first time since Golda Meir more than three decades ago, a woman is within reach of becoming the prime minister of Israel, a nation dominated by macho military men and a religious establishment with strict views on the role of women.

But unlike Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin, Israel's Tzipi Livni doesn't talk about cracking glass ceilings, even as she leads the field in the ruling Kadima Party's Sept. 17 primary to choose the likely successor to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Yet the tough-minded foreign minister's gender is popping up.

Top male rivals have branded Livni with words like "weak" and "that woman." And there is talk about ultra-Orthodox Jewish lawmakers who might be kingmakers in the next government being uncomfortable with the idea of a female leader.

Livni hasn't commented about the gender issue, and adviser Gil Messing said the foreign minister would not agree to be interviewed on the subject, but others have complained about the allusions to her gender.
... ... ...

What is the news from Palestine these days? Does anyone here have areliable sources with new information?

It has kind of been off the radar for the last several weeks hasn't it? No news is good news maybe?

So, what's going on?

In this case, I apologize. However, in the past you have definitely shown a hostility toward Israel and Jews.

Ahmadinejad: Iran will support Hamas until collapse of Israel
September 13, 2008
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Friday to keep supporting the Palestinian militant group Hamas until the "collapse of Israel."

The Iranian news agency Khabar quoted Ahmadinejad as telling Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh that Iran views the support of the Palestinian people as part of its religious and national duty and that Iran will stand behind the Palestinian nation "until the big victory feast which is the collapse of the Zionist regime."

In a phone conversation between the two leaders, the Iranian president said that the continued Hamas resistance against Israel and the group's achievements would always be "a source of pride for all Muslims."
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Iran does not acknowledge the sovereignty of Israel and vowed to support Hamas until what Ahmadinejad calls "deliverance from Zionists (Israel)."

Haniyeh, the leader of the Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, was elected Palestinian prime minister in 2006, but was dismissed in June 2007 by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, after Hamas violently seized control over the Gaza Strip from Abbas' Palestinian Authority
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1020630.html

Given the impression by some that Syria is little more than a puppet of Iran, how successful can peace talks between Israel and Syria be when Ahmadinejad continues to express determination to destroy Israel?

So you prefer her now, too, and not Netanyahu anymore?