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Democrats in House of Reps. joined J Street in supporting Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making painful concessions Seventy-four Democrats in the House of Representatives have joined the dovish J Street organization in supporting the Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making painful concessions to the Palestinian Authority. “In our view, support for a two-state resolution is inseparable from such support for Israel, its special relationship with the United States, and its very survival as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people,” the letter said. Seven Jewish members signed the letter, including Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), John...

According to reports in Israel’s Hebrew-language media, the IDF is expected to recommend Israel make 'gestures' to the Palestinian Authority in order to bolster its stature following last week's deal with Hamas to free 1,027 terrorists for Gilad Shalit. The Shalit deal was widely hailed as a stunning victory for Gaza's ruling Hamas terror organization, launching them back to the fore of the Israeli-Arab milieu and rendering them stratospherically ascendant over rival PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement. Some analysts have suggested Israel's leaders timed the Shalit deal in such a way as to punish Abbas for his September statehood...

SYDNEY (MarketWatch) -- North Korea has reportedly agreed to let United Nations nuclear inspectors back into the country. The deal has been made as part of an attempt to ease tensions on the Korean peninsular, according to the reports on Monday.

Only 5% think diplomacy and sanctions can stop Iran, AJC poll finds. Although a slim majority of American Jews supports the Obama administration’s handling of US-Israel relations, a larger majority opposes any Israeli concession on Jerusalem as part of a peace deal, a survey released over the weekend by the American Jewish Committee revealed. Fifty-five percent of respondents said they approved of the administration’s policy regarding US-Israel relations. But 61% also said Israel should not be “willing to compromise on the status of Jerusalem as a united city under Israeli jurisdiction” as part of the framework of a peace settlement.

JERUSALEM, Israel -- By pushing for a Mideast breakthrough while de manding that only Israel make concessions, Presi dent Obama blundered badly in one of his first foreign-policy gambits. But it was a mistake that was largely irrelevant to the peace process for a simple reason: There was almost no chance of an agreement in any event. Obama's promises and threats, part of his courtship of Muslims, were designed to show he was not George W. Bush. It's a tiresome habit, but it didn't matter because he crashed into the same reality Bush met. The Palestinians and Israel remain deadlocked,...

MILAN – Automaker Fiat Group SpA will walk away from a deal to take a 20-percent stake in Chrysler LLC if the U.S. automaker's unions don't agree to major cost cuts, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said in an interview published Wednesday. Fiat and Chrysler are up against an April 30 deadline for Fiat to take a stake in the failing U.S. automaker in exchange for small car technology, but Chrysler first needs concessions from creditors and unions to ink the Fiat deal. The Canadian Auto Workers union is scheduled to resume negotiations with Chrysler on Monday after a two-week hiatus,...

The Obama administration is abandoning the demand for the UAW to accept wage parity with transplant auto manufacturers. According to Bloomberg.com, Steven Rattner, the Treasury’s chief auto adviser said, GM and Chrysler must be “on a path” to bring wage rates in line with foreign automakers based in the U.S. rather than have those pay rates take effect immediately, he said. The phrase "on a path" is so vague there is now a mile wide loophole for the UAW to jump through. The Bush Administration demanded the UAW accept a wage and benefit package at the level of the transplant...

On 13 September 1993 in a public ceremony in the presence of PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and US President Bill Clinton, with Mahmud Abbas signing for the Palestine Liberation Organization, foreign Minister Shimon Peres for the State of Israel, Secretary of State Warren Christopher for the United States and foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev for Russia, the Oslo Accords were signed The accords tied Israel to making one-sided concessions and tied the PLO to nothing. The Destruction of Israel is still called for in their charter and terrorism was formalized as a legitimate way of obtaining political...

The UAW has failed to give serious concessions to the Big Three as part of a deal to satisfy the terms of the automotive bailout. They have only offered token reductions that will mean very little to Detroit's bottom line. According to the Associated Press the UAW agreed to limit overtime, reduce cash bonuses, forgo cost of living pay increases and limit supplemental pay for laid-off workers. Are they serious? Who in the automotive manufacturing sector is working overtime now? Auto production is down almost 40% this year. Also, they are going to reduce their cash bonuses? How do you...

The bailout concessions sought by the "big three" may mean the death of the UAW. Reportedly, a tentative agreement has been reached to bring UAW union's wages and benefits in line with the transplants. Based on the UAW's history of delaying tactics, we will have to wait to see if this is true. The UAW has been trying to delay having any serious wage or benefit concessions take place until two or three years down the road. If that is what the current agreement is about, it is a sham. In two or three years, the auto market and economy...

(IsraelNN.com) Israeli diplomatic sources said Sunday that the American delegation was very surprised at the extent of Israeli concessions to the Fatah-controlled "Palestinian Authority" (PA) announced by Defense Minister Ehud Barak. However, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was quick to say that they were not enough, and vowed to monitor Israel's execution of its promises. The latest Israeli concessions to the PA in Judea and Samaria include permission for construction of two new Arab neighborhoods in the Ramallah area, with a total of 5,000 to 8,000 housing units. In addition, about 50 dirt roadblocks in Samaria will be removed, thus...

SH 130 Concession Company LLC finalized the legal details of a financial close with Texas DOT on a $1,360m toll concession to build SH130 segments 5&6 Thursday and Friday last week in bankers' offices in New York City - at Orrick, 666 Fifth Avenue. The actual money flows should occur on Thursday or Friday (Mar 13 or 14) this week, Jose Maria Lopez de Fuentes, president of Cintra North America, told us this morning. Hundreds of documents and over 20 lawyers were involved last week representing TxDOT, private equity people, banks, mostly European, the TIFIA loan group from FHWA, and...

SEOUL (AFP) — North Korea said Monday that the United States has decided to remove it from a list of states sponsoring terrorism -- a crucial step towards the normalisation of relations between the two countries. The US decision came at a weekend meeting between the chief nuclear negotiators of the two countries in Geneva, a foreign ministry spokesman told the official Korean Central News Agency. "Both sides discussed the issue of taking practical measures to neutralise the existing nuclear facilities in the DPRK (North Korea) within this year and agreed on them," the spokesman said. "In return for this...

Special Mideast envoy says Jerusalem must bolster Abbas, agree to release more prisoners and reopen Gaza crossings to prevent humanitarian crisis. ‘I would hope something would be done with regard to the illegal West Bank outposts,’ he adds AFP Published: 08.22.07, 20:50 / Israel News The UN special envoy to the Middle East urged Israel on Wednesday to take further measures to bolster Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to sustain efforts to renew peace talks. Michael Williams also urged Israel to agree to reopen crossings into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis in the overcrowded and...

VIENNA, Austria - Iran has lifted its ban on visits to a nuclear facility by U.N. experts and now will allow them to inspect the site, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday. It also said Tehran was ready to answer key questions on past suspicious experiments that the international community fears could be linked to a weapons program. The IAEA — the U.N. nuclear monitor — said Iran promised the concessions earlier this week in meeting between its officials and a senior delegation from the Vienna-based agency. Years of Iranian stonewalling have left the IAEA unable to ascertain whether...

LONDON - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he is ready to make painful concessions after completing a plan to withdraw from parts of the West Bank and unilaterally draw Israel's borders with the Palestinians. "I am ready to make concessions that will be painful and divisive, the specific nature of which, the accurate aspect of all this will take place during the process of negotiations," he said in an interview to be aired on Sky Television Sunday at the start of his visit to Europe. "I'm not going to negotiate on television, but I'm ready to make these sacrifices...

During memorial for victims of terrorism, president calls on Islam leaders to fight terror President Moshe Katsav said during a memorial ceremony for Israel's fallen soldiers at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem that the fight for freedom has been going on for over a century. "We are managing a war for our existence for over 100 years. We've already gone down a significant part of the road, a large, historical journey, to settle the conflict. But it became clear to us that from the time we started making far-reaching compromises, out of a sincere and true aspiration for peace – that...

Among the Trans Texas Corridor's most fervent opponents are farmers and ranchers who are closely tied to family land. Many are like Susan Ridgeway Garry of Coupland, a small, rural community in the Austin area. "When you say the Trans Texas Corridor 'will be built on state land handed to investors,' you leave out an important step," she wrote. "It is not currently state land, it is Texas citizens' land, some of which has been in the same family for generations." Though they no longer farm, the Garrys live on land that has been in her husband's family for generations....

As Israel struggled Thursday to evacuate the Gush Katif settlements, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it must take further steps. "Everyone empathizes with what the Israelis are facing," she said in an interview with The New York Times. But, she added, "It cannot be Gaza only." Rice said this is "really quite a dramatic moment in the history of the Middle East," and praised Sharon for proving himself "enormously courageous." According to the Times, Rice said that while the withdrawal would take several weeks, Israel must take further steps soon afterward, including loosening travel restrictions in the West...

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice scolded Sudan's government for failing to end bloodshed in the troubled region of Darfur but signaled a possible easing of US sanctions on humanitarian grounds. Rice had a round of talks with Khartoum leaders, demanded and got an apology for a dustup between her entourage and Sudanese security men, and visited battered Darfur. US officials said Rice made clear Washington would not improve ties with Sudan without a resolution of the crisis in Darfur, where up to 300,000 people have died in 29 months of fighting branded by Washington as genocide. "I told them...

There has been much talk about terrorism's "root causes" following last week's London bombings, but I have yet to hear anyone mention the most important cause of all: the fact that terrorism has thus far proven extremely effective – thereby encouraging the terrorists to continue. If you accept the West's formulation of the terrorists' goals, that may sound counterintuitive. The Israeli "occupation," for instance, could have ended in 2000, when Israel offered to uproot most settlements and establish a Palestinian state, with east Jerusalem as its capital, in some 97 percent of the territories. But since the Palestinians responded by...

On Saturday May 4th, the Associated Press quoted a source from U.S. intelligence and foreign allies who avowed havingg enough evidence to prove that several top Al Qaeda operatives are hiding in Iran - with the complicity of the Iranian government. If that is confirmed (and in part it already is), it will be a huge blow to the credibility of those who tell us that Shiite and Sunni fundamentalists could never collaborate with each other. This alliance of rivals has been built as a way to wage a "holy war" on the U.S., Israel and the democratic world at...

The Associated Press blares the headline that all conservatives have been dreading: “GOP Considers Dropping Personal Accounts.” The story begins, “Senate Republican leaders are considering whether to seek Democratic support for Social Security legislation without the personal accounts.” The story continues, “top Republicans discussed an approach under which they would effectively acquiesce in an attempt to test the waters for bipartisan legislation without personal accounts.” What would be included in such legislation? The story cites “extending the payroll tax beyond the current $90,000 in income” and “raising the retirement age.” It also refers to a proposal advanced by Sen. Robert...

FRANKENSTEIN'S PEACE musings #103 - March 3, 2005 The 22nd of Adar Alef Isralert.com source: Subscriber/commentator Batya Medad in Shiloh, Israel I’m assuming that you all know the classic story of Dr. Frankenstein, a great scientist who discovered the “secret of life” and decided to “create a man.” This morning as I was dovening Shacharit, the morning prayers, suddenly I noticed a phrase that appears in many, but this morning, it stood out. Baruch Atah …oseh shalom uvoray et hacol.” “Blessed are You…who makes peace and creates everything.” Then the phrase “Hu oseh shalom,” “ He makes peace” kept going...

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Cabinet began charting Israel's future borders in a historic session Sunday, giving final approval to a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a revised route for the West Bank separation barrier that would move Israel's border closer to that of its original frontier. With the vote, an Israeli government agreed for the first time since capturing the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war to dismantle some of the dozens of Jewish settlements it has built there. However, approving the route of the barrier, Israel acted unilaterally on what was to be...

"The demolition of homes in Gush Katif under the disengagement plan will cause severe damage to the environment and unprecedented damage to Israel's economy and public image," Environment Minister Shalom Simhon warned Sunday. According to cabinet decision 1996, approved in June, all of the private homes in settlements slated for evacuation will be demolished under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza pullout plan. On Sunday, warning of unprecedented environmental damage to the country, Simhon called on Sharon to reconsider the decision to demolish the homes and to instead leave them standing following the pullout. Simhon said that since taking office last...

Abu Mazen added that while he also will insist Jerusalem be the capital of a new Palestinian state, he might be willing to compromise on the long-standing demand that millions of Arabs in other countries be allowed to return. The PA president's remarks to the German Der Spiegel magazine were made at the same time Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz signed orders that all Jewish residents in Gaza and northern Samaria have until July 20 to leave their homes voluntarily. Afterwards, the government plans to force them out. July 20 falls three days before the beginning...

Start all over with the Trans Texas Corridor. And let the legislature oversee future highway planning. That was the gist of the testimony delivered by TFB State Director Albert Thompson on behalf of the Texas Farm Bureau during a recent Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security hearing on the massive transportation project. "...it appears to us that the legislature has given the Texas Department of Transportation what amounts to a blank check worth approximately $180 billion," Thompson said on Feb. 9. "We would feel more comfortable if citizens had the opportunity to voice opinions with elected officials who should...

LUXEMBOURG (AP) - Iran's foreign minister on Tuesday warned Britain, France and Germany that they must make more economic and technological concessions to meet a deadline next month for agreement on Tehran's nuclear activities. The three European Union powers are trying to persuade Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment program, which Washington fears could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. Iran insisted again Tuesday that its nuclear activities are peaceful. But the talks still need much progress to reach a fruitful conclusion, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamel Kharrazi said after discussions with the Luxembourg government, which holds the EU presidency. "It...

Ever wanted to own a toll road? How about one with 85 mile-per-hour speed limits alongside a congested interstate -- one where you had exclusive rights to sell food, gas and lodging? You can buy all that and more if you've got a few billion dollars and can convince the Texas Transportation Commission to let you build the Trans-Texas Corridor. In 2002, Governor Rick Perry campaigned on a promise of a privately financed and operated toll road system -- 4,000 miles to be built over the next 50 years. The cost is estimated at $180 billion. Few within the transportation...

Dec. 30, 2004 1:20 | Updated Dec. 30, 2004 20:02 Sharon: Only one unilateral pullout By HERB KEINON AND ETGAR LEFKOVITS Ehud Olmert Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski Israel will not unilaterally withdraw from any other territories after carrying out the Gaza disengagement plan, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made clear Thursday, responding to comments to the contrary that Industry, Labor and Trade Minister Ehud Olmert made to The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. Olmert, whose comments in the past have occasionally been an indication of where Sharon plans to go in the future, said that Israel will need to carry out a large-scale...

SACRAMENTO - As he seeks to rein in California's budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is finding that there's some state spending even he can't control. With the state's prison population surging to an all-time record, the Schwarzenegger administration in late September alerted lawmakers that it might need an additional $109 million to manage the nation's largest correctional system, according to documents obtained Tuesday by the Mercury News. Coincidentally, that is roughly equal to the $108 million in labor concessions the governor negotiated earlier this year with prison guards. Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, a critic of the prison system, blasted the...

"I think it's very important for our friends, the Israelis, to have a peaceful Palestinian state living on their border. And it's very important for the Palestinian people to have a peaceful, hopeful future." So spoke President Bush just two days after his re-election, just exactly as news reports were leaking Yasser Arafat's demise.The combination of Mr. Bush's stunning new mandate and Mr. Arafat's near-death condition will lead, I predict, to a quick revival of Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy after months of relative doldrums and to massive dangers to Israel.The doldrums will cease because the Bush administration views Mr. Arafat as the...

What would happen if a candidate like Kerry gave a concession speech, but a final canvass of votes showed an actual total that reversed the election? Does a concession speech rule? Do they quit counting votes after a concession?

European airlines win concessions on sky marshals By Stephen Castle in Brussels 17 January 2004 The United States yesterday said it will not ban European airlines without sky marshals from its airspace, providing alternative security measures are deemed satisfactory. Asa Hutchinson, the deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department, announced the compromise following talks with European Union officials in Brussels. Mr Hutchinson said there was no "blanket policy" to prevent airlines without armed guards from entering American territory. The Homeland Security Department announced last month that airlines would be required to place armed law enforcement officers on flights to America...

It is not coincidental that since Operation Iraqi Freedom there have been developments in Libya, North Korea and Iran that make the world safer. Soon after Saddam Hussein fell, Singapore Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani said to me, ''Afghanistan showed the world that the United States can project its power to the farthest corners of the globe. Iraq has taught us that there is nowhere to hide.'' In Iraq, 25 million victims of Saddam's brutal regime are free. He will never again gas and poison his own people and his neighbors as he did to hundreds of thousands of men, women and...

As Israeli homes throughout the country began to receive copies of the so-called "Geneva Initiative", some people have elected to, as the mailing requests, "tell us your opinion". But they have done so in a very public way. In Kiryat Malachi yesterday (Tuesday), a group of yeshiva students belonging to the Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidic sect gathered several copies of the "Geneva Initiative" document together and set them alight. Chabad spokesman Menachem Brod stated that, while the booklet belongs in the trash, there were no instructions given to burn the pamphlets, nor does the Chabad leadership approve of or endorse the actions...

Enough peace talk Posted: August 21, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com What will it take for Israelis and Americans to understand you can't negotiate with terrorists? How much innocent blood needs to be spilled before we acknowledge the "peace process" has failed? How many more little children and old people have to be blown up by evil suicidal maniacs before we say, "Enough is enough!" These are the questions going through my mind a day after the latest terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and Baghdad. Since the beginning of the Oslo Accords in 1993, Israel has fulfilled all of...

The "Roadmap" has become a one-way highway to Hell. Some kind of monstrous dybbuk has infested the souls of Israel's leaders, turning them into completely irrational beings, compelling them to agree to every outrageous and irreversible demand of the Palestinians, while the Palestinians promise to make more promises which they fail to keep.This is the same dybbuk which has caused the Israeli media and intelligentsia to reject their own people and embrace those who only want to see them dead, who blame the righteous Jews of Israel for "stealing Palestinian land" and "settling" in parts of the Holy Land...

Only three months after the UN Security Council told President George W. Bush to take his deck of cards and get out, it is hard to believe that the president now appears as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's lackey in the Middle East. For popular consumption, in America the road map is called the "US" road map, but its authorship is not American. It is a Quartet road map, the US being only one of four members, along with the UN, the European Union (EU), and Russia. In essence the road map was substantially written by UN players and the...

I could not believe what I saw late last night on the news bulletin on the Palestinian Authority television station. I rubbed my eyes to see better, but there it was, repeated by the newscaster; a tiny red ball of laser kept bouncing on the blackboard on the wall in the news room as he moved from one item to another in slow motion, explaining every numbered detail. All together, there were twelve itemized points. The title above the list, in black, bold letters, proclaimed: "PA Confidence-Building Concessions". I almost choked. As ´confidence building moves´ towards establishing peace with Israel,...

Associated Press Employees to Vote on Airline Concessions Saturday April 19, 1:09 am ET By David Koenig, AP Business Writer Flight Attendants to Vote Again on American Airlines Concessions, Citing Executive Bonuses DALLAS (AP) -- Enraged by an American Airlines plan to give bonuses to top executives, the flight attendants' union said late Friday it would scrap results of a vote that approved concessions the company says it needs to stay out of bankruptcy. The union said it plans to schedule a new vote. The company said Friday that executives had decided not to accept the bonuses, which were disclosed...

<p>California's director of personnel, Marty Morgenstern, believes unions will "realize they all have to pitch in because of the difficulty of the state's budget situation."</p> <p>California's three biggest public safety employee unions have notified Gov. Gray Davis' administration that -- budget crisis or no budget crisis -- they won't renegotiate five-year salary increases they received when times were better.</p>