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Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday belittled the global focus on the growth of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, and said there would be no more unilateral concessions to the Palestinian Authority. "It is not a coincidence that since [the] Oslo [Accords] we have not reached the end of the conflict," Lieberman said, addressing a gathering of Druze supporters in the Arab city of Shfaram. The meeting was held at the home of Hamad Amar, a Knesset Member representing Lieberman's Israel Beiteinu party. In the last Knesset elections, the mixed Druze, Christian and Muslim Shfaram gave Israel Beiteinu 14.4%...

After a long hiatus, the Israeli Navy has returned to sailing through the Suez Canal, recently sending one of its advanced Dolphin-class submarines through the waterway to participate in naval maneuvers off the Eilat coast in the Red Sea. IDF sources said the decision to allow navy vessels to sail through the canal was made recently and was a definite "change of policy" within the service. In 2005, then OC Navy Adm. David Ben-Bashat decided to stop sending Israeli ships through the canal due to growing threats in the area. However, the Dolphin-class submarine sailed through last month to get...

...IDF sources said the decision to allow navy vessels to sail through the canal was made recently and was a definite "change of policy"....The significance of the move was debatable, but it could be interpreted as a message to Iran and a demonstration of strengthening ties between Egypt and Israel. In the event of a conflict with Iran, and if Israel decided to involve its three Dolphin-class submarines - which according to foreign reports can fire nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and serve as a second-strike platform - the quickest route would be to send them through the Suez Canal.

Benjamin Netanyahu's second cabinet will complete its 100th day in power next week, ending what is known as its 'period of grace.' In a private discussions with his associates, the prime minister said that not only was he being denied a grace period, but that he had to deal with a 'media onslaught' that began hours into his term. This onslaught relented only after his address at Bar-Ilan University last month, when he said he accepted the prospect of a future Palestinian state, he said. In the same private discussion, the premier recounted what he considers his cabinet's achievements over...

Former U.S. lawmaker and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and several other human rights activists remained in an Israeli prison Thursday after refusing to sign a deportation form that they claim is self-incriminating. In a press release from the Green Party, McKinney said the form states that the Spirit of Humanity, a Greek-flagged relief boat carrying 21 activists, medical supplies, cement, olive trees and children's toys en route to Gaza, was violating the Israeli blockade and trespassing the country's territorial waters. "We were in international waters on a boat delivering humanitarian aid to people in Gaza

John Bolton has a compelling and courageous analysis in the Washington Post today, making the case that Israel should bomb Iran’s nuclear installations and do so quickly. He argues that diplomacy has no chance of working, leaving only one serious option on the table if Iran is to be prevented from going nuclear. He adds a new and important point:

He swept to power with the support of 78% of American Jews. But has Barack Obama become the bane of Israeli Jews? A gulf between American and Israeli Jews was evident even before Obama moved into the White House. Just a third of Israelis would have endorsed him had they been allowed to vote, polling indicated, while almost half would have chosen John McCain. In recent weeks, several public opinion surveys have suggested that Obama's popularity has dropped far below this already low point. A Jerusalem Post-commissioned poll released on June 19 reported that only 6% of Jewish Israelis consider...

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney -- who was aboard a ship the Israeli navy intercepted this week -- is in a detention center and will be returned to the United States, the U.S. Embassy said. McKinney was among those on a ship that the Israeli Defense Forces said violated an Israeli blockade and crossed into Gazan waters on Tuesday. The Israeli navy gained control of the ship and took McKinney and about 20 people into custody, said the Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group that sent the ship. The group said the ship, which it calls...

The American embassy held its annual party celebrating the birth of the United States. Israeli leaders from the military and political classes were in attendance along with the American staff of the embassy. From both the right and left the participants sat together and were entertained by American music, food and fireworks. Prime Minister of the Jewish state, Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the gathering.

It has been confirmed across the board that 18-wheelers were seen going into Syria before the war, crossing the border soon after Iraqi intelligence replaced the border guards and cleared nearby areas for their passage. There are also eyewitness reports of the trucks going into Syria, and eyewitness reports of their burial in Lebanon. The trucks with the weapons were tracked to three locations in Syria and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, currently controlled by the Syrians, Iranians, and Hezbollah. Sources I've spoken with that have seen satellite photos of the movements confirm that the WMD in Syria are at military bases,...

With Iran's hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever. This Story Time for an Israeli Strike? End the Spat With Israel In Morocco, an Alternative to Iran Iran's nuclear threat was never in doubt during its presidential campaign, but the post-election resistance raised the possibility of some sort of regime change. That prospect seems lost for the near future or for at least as long as it will take Iran to finalize a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.

Captive soldier Gilad Shalit was made an honorary citizen of Rome on Wednesday. Gilad's father, Noam Shalit, accepted the honor in his stead at a ceremony at city hall as part of a campaign led by the mayors of both Rome and Paris. Earlier in the day Shalit held a series of meetings with Italian officials, including Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and the presidents of the parliament and senate. The main event was held at Julius Caesar Hall on Rome's Capitoline Hill. Mayor Gianni Alemanno told those assembled of his ties to the Shalit family and to Israel. He met...

Unwavering support for Israeli policy has eroded dramatically both on American college campuses and within the United States as a whole, according to a group of American university professors who on Sunday concluded an academic exchange program here, sponsored by the Yitzhak Rabin Center. "The project had been planned for eight months and this is the first group of political science professors to arrive here from America," said Dalia Rabin, daughter of the late prime minister and director of the Rabin Center. "The goal, which I think we accomplished, was to show them the complexities of the issues facing Israel,...

U.S. President Barack Obama's policies have left an Israeli attack on Iran the only option in preventing the Muslim country from obtaining a nuclear weapon, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton wrote in The Washington Post Thursday. In an article headlined "Time for an Israeli Strike?" Bolton answered his own question by stating, "Israel decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever ... Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities."

The Arabs know what they want, and that is the end of Israel. The Jews are divided as to what they want. The left wants to get the hell out of the West Bank. The center, including Kadima and Labour, want to keep the settlement blocks containing most of the settlers but are prepared to uproot as many as 70,000 Jews, perhaps even 100,000. The right does not want to allow a Palestinian state to emerge, even if demilitarized. All are united in requiring an end of conflict and the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Netanyahu is a...

.S. President Barack Obama’s policies have left an Israeli attack on Iran the only option in preventing the Muslim country from obtaining a nuclear weapon, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton wrote in The Washington Post Thursday. In an article headlined “Time for an Israeli Strike?” Bolton answered his own question by stating, "Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever."

Amnesty International’s annual report condemns Israel for its treatment of Palestinian Authority Arabs while only briefly noting atrocities attributed to the Hamas terrorist organization. Both the IDF and a watchdog on fair media research called the report findings biased and unethical. Amnesty International issued Thursday its annual report, condemning Israel and PA Arabs for disproportional violence during Operation Cast Lead. The human rights watchdog blames Israel for killing over 1,400 PA Arabs in Gaza and wounding 5,000 others. The report blames the IDF for repeatedly breaching the laws of war by “by carrying out direct attacks on civilians and civilian...

HELD AL-QUDS: The Israeli navy on Tuesday boarded and seized a ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists that was heading to the Gaza Strip in defiance of Israel's blockade, a military spokesman said. "In the last hour an Israeli navy force intercepted, boarded and took control of the cargo boat 'Arion' ... as it was illegally attempting to enter the Gaza Strip," the spokesman said late in the afternoon. The military said the ship, which was sailing under a Greek flag, was the same vessel known as the "Spirit of Humanity", which was sailing to Gaza to protest the Israeli blockade on...

Many American supporters of Israel who voted for Barack Obama now suspect they may have been victims of a bait and switch. Jewish Americans voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama over John McCain in part because the Obama campaign went to great lengths to assure these voters that a President Obama would be supportive of Israel. This despite his friendships with rabidly anti-Israel characters like Rev. Jeremiah Wright and historian Rashid Khalidi. At the suggestion of Mr. Obama's Jewish supporters -- including me -- the candidate visited the beleaguered town of Sderot, which had borne the brunt of thousands of rocket...

A small Jewish toddler was orphaned in Mumbai last November amid a reign of terror carried out for the "prestige of Islam," according to a transcript of phone calls between the terrorists and their handlers published this week in an Indian newspaper. The terrorists murdered six Jews during the multi-pronged attack which began November 26, 2008 and ended in a river of blood at the Nariman Chabad House and additional locales. The three-day slaughter, which took the lives of dozens of others elsewhere in Mumbai, India as well, also carried the additional goal of damaging relations between Israel and India,...

TEL AVIV – Not a single Jewish home will be built in the strategic West Bank without approval of the Obama administration and the Palestinians, Nimer Hamad, senior political adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told WND. In spite of recent reports Israel will build 50 new homes in a northern West Bank Jewish community, Hamad said U.S. guarantees make him "confident" such housing will not actually be constructed. "The guarantees we received from the U.S. make us confident all the talks about the 50 houses in Adam are only a piece of meat (Defense Minister Ehud) Barak threw...

Rome has given honorary citizenship to an Israeli soldier kidnapped by militants linked to Gaza's militant Islamic Hamas group three years ago.

(IsraelNN.com) Fire fighters in northern Israel fought dozens of blazes that broke out during the day Wednesday, most of them around noontime. A source in the Hadera Fire Services told News1 that due to the fact that numerous fires broke out in a relatively limited area, the working assumption is that they were deliberately set. “We still do not know how the fires were set and we do not have details about the arsonist or arsonists,” he said.

Israeli Border Police films itself humiliating Arabs The video isn't long, only 43 seconds in length and was most probably filmed with a mobile phone. Watch it and you'll see a scared Palestinian youth slapping himself - a sad and humiliated look in his eyes - while cameramen chuckle in the background and order him to continue slapping himself.

It’s a frequent scene in television crime dramas: Clever police technicians zoom in on a security camera video to read a license plate or capture the face of a hold-up artist. But in real life, enhancing this low-quality video to focus in on important clues hasn’t been an easy task - until now. Tel Aviv University Prof. Leonid Yaroslavsky and his colleagues have developed a new video “perfection tool” to help investigators enhance raw video images and identify suspects.

Presently, there is an unprecedented push for peace in the Mideast. President Obama, Pope Benedict XVI, along with a significant host of other powerful world leaders, clamor once and for all for a two-state solution. They have heightened concern that the writing is on the 403-mile wall currently protecting Israeli's from Palestinian terror that a Middle East war is imminent. As the clock rapidly ticks toward what will likely be the prophetic Psalm 83 showdown, Israel circles the wagons in preparation for a multi-front confederate conflict with its ancient enemies, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu loosens his grip from the...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the ties between Israel and the United States will remain strong during the days of the new administration. Speaking at a reception to celebrate US Independence Day at the US ambassador's house, Netanyahu said: "We have a close relationship with the United States, that President Obama defined in his speech in Cairo as unbreakable, and it is indeed unbreakable." (Roni Sofer)

Hebron -- Uriya and 80 other first grade boys received their certificates last month on completing their study of the entire book of Genesis. That's an important achievement in many Jewish day schools in the United States, usually accomplished only in the third grade. What was truly unique about Uriya's reception was its location: The Shrine of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron in the West Bank. Meorat HaMachpeila, the traditional site of the graves of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah, is the second holiest site in Judaism after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The...

Accustomed as he is to public speaking here and around the country, David Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee, can read an audience as well as anyone. Lately, he says, he is "hearing a growing number of questions and concerns about the U.S.-Israel relationship, and a sense that the Obama administration’s response to the Iran crisis was slower than it should have been." Harris is not alone. Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, says the normal anxiety level among American Jews when a new administration takes shape has been heightened to new levels because President Obama...

(IsraelNN.com) Former Jordanian prime minister Abd Al-Raouf Al-Rawabdeh delivered a speech recently in which he called Israel “a cancer that must be eradicated.”

Government officials accompanying President Shimon Peres in Kazakhstan accidentally left behind secret documents, including details of his itinerary, and threw security officials into a panic. The president’s spokeswoman confirmed to Israel National News that the documents had been forgotten and placed the source of the blunder in the Foreign Ministry.

Seven Reasons for Leftist Anti-Semitism By: Don Feder GrassTopsUSA.com | Wednesday, July 01, 2009 Old joke: Walking down a street, a rabbi is accosted by an anti-Semite who tells him “The Jews are to blame for all of our problems.” The rabbi replies, “You’re absolutely right. It’s all the fault of the Jews – and the redheads.” Puzzled, the anti-Semite asks, “Why the redheads”? The rabbi responds, “Why the Jews”? But for the left, anti-Semitism makes perfect sense – almost as much sense as socialized medicine. Except for Islam (with which it’s increasingly allied), the left has a near-monopoly on...

Why would the Israelis want to control the world when they are having a hard enough time trying to control themselves? Still, it's a question worth pondering especially in the age of the Internet and the rise of the Zionist conspiracy called "Facebook." Let's "faceit," Facebook has a very strong Israeli face. Well, that's if you assume all Jews are Israelis and all Israelis are Jews. The evidence suggests a link. The founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was born on May 14, 1984. Coincidence? (Hint, Israel's birthday!) And 1984 - the subject of George Orwell's book about the battle to control the...

Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak tried to convince special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell Tuesday that construction for Jews in Judea and Samaria isn’t an obstacle to the peace process. Barak's view is that the focus on building homes is short-sighted and that it will lead the peace process to a dead end instead of helping to create a wide-ranging regional peace plan. "In 2000, I was the Israeli Prime Minister that made the boldest steps to attain peace, and that year saw the largest number of Israeli construction-starts" in Judea and Samaria, he told Mitchell at their...

Likud Knesset Member Danny Danon has called on party leader and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to boycott Wednesday evening’s annual U.S. Independence Day reception. He said that most coalition MKs will join him to protest what he called American contempt towards Israel.

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- The Israeli navy took control of a boat that violated an Israeli blockade and crossed into Gazan waters Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces said, while a Gaza group said the ship was carrying humanitarian aid, a former U.S. congresswoman and a Nobel laureate. The boat's crew included former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, according to the Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group that sent the boat it calls "Spirit of Humanity" from Cyprus. Along with McKinney, who served six terms in the House of Representatives from Georgia and was the Green Party's presidential nominee in 2008, Israeli...

No one, including a president of the United States of America, can presume to tell me, a Jew, that I cannot live in the area of my national homeland. That's one of the main reasons my wife and I chose in 1981 to move to Shiloh, a so-called settlement less than 30 miles north of Jerusalem. After Shiloh was founded in 1978, then-President Carter demanded of Prime Minister Menachem Begin that the village of eight families be removed. Carter, from his first meeting with Begin, pressed him to "freeze" the activity of Jews rebuilding a presence in their historic home....

(IsraelNN.com) In a public address delivered on Al-Aqsa TV by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, the Damascus-based terror boss informed Arab viewers that U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama came to power in the United States due to Islamic jihad in the Middle East.

First off, let me say that given the historical hatred for Jews in the world, I am loath to write an article critical of members of my own faith. But this needs to be said, and I'm going to say it. To all Jews reading this, take the time and fully digest the ideas being discussed here. Yes, I'm Jewish, but unlike most of my brethren, I voted McCain. Living in New York, I've been amazed by just how many fellow Jews supported Obama in the 2008 election. Many of them Liberals, proud, loud, outspoken Liberals who won't even debate...

Have the Obama administration's Middle East policies created stress for our friends at the National Jewish Democratic Council? One possible clue is that their blog just began regular cross-posting of blog posts from a site called "Neurotic Democrat." But more straightforward evidence can be found in a series of increasingly ludicrous "Fact sheets" that are about as convincing as the Wizard of Oz thundering "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." Last year, NJDC assured Jewish voters, “Obama believes Israel’s Security is Paramount” and highlighted Obama’s pledge to AIPAC leaders that if he was elected the U.S. would...

IsraelNN.com) The Center for American Progress, an American think tank which has served as a source for several of the Obama administration’s policies, issued a report recommending that control of Jerusalem be taken away from Israel. Operating with the premise that the Old City of Jerusalem is the central problem in the peace process, the report discusses various options for a third-party entity that would replace Israel as its administrator.

Spain’s National Court on Tuesday closed a probe launched by one of its judges into a July 2002 Israeli military air strike against a Hamas target in Gaza. The operation, which left Hamas leader Saleh Shehadeh killed, destroyed the building he was in leaving 14 people killed, many of them women and children. The judge, Fernando Andreu, argued that it could be considered a crime against humanity. The decision to end the investigation came after the Spanish parliament gave preliminary legislation saying that all cases investigated by the court would have to involve Spanish citizens or a defendant on Spanish...

The Israel Navy intercepted a boat carrying international activists attempting to break a blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Tuesday and forced it to sail to the southern port city of Ashdon, the army said. Earlier Tuesday, the navy surrounded the vessel, which was also carrying humanitarian aid, and told the activists to turn back because of security risks in the area and the blockade, according to the army. But the boat later entered Gaza's coastal waters, the Israel Defense Forces Spokespersons' Office said in a statement, after which a naval force boarded it. No shots were fired during...

Small ferry carrying medical supplies that set sail from Cyprus Monday with 21 peace activists, medical supplies intercepted off Strip's shore; passengers say army jammed boat's radio signals. At around noon Tuesday the Israeli Navy intercepted and took control of a boat that had set sail for the Gaza Strip with three tons of medical supplies, Palestinian sources said, adding that the Navy jammed the boat's radio signals. The IDF Spokesperson's Office confirmed the report. Israeli military sources said there was no violence after the small ferry, sailing from Cyprus with activists from the US-based Free Gaza Movement, was intercepted...

Several IDF navy boats intercepted, boarded and took control of a boat of pro-Arab activists trying to break Israeli sovereignty over coastal waters Tuesday afternoon. No one was injured, and an IDF spokesman told Israel National News that no shots were fired. It was the first time the IDF has boarded one of the boats since the pro-Arab “Free Gaza” movement began sending ships to Gaza last August.

In the West Bank, Suburb or Settlement? For Israelis, Homes; For Palestinians, a Wall MODIIN ILLIT, West Bank, June 29 -- Chaim Hanfling knows a lot about this settlement's population boom. Six of his 11 siblings have moved here from Jerusalem in recent years to take advantage of the lower land prices, and at age 29, he has added four children of his own. Located just over the Green Line that marks the territory occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the booming ultra-Orthodox community, home to more than 41,000 people, shows why the settlement freeze demanded by the Obama administration...

Search through the 1,000-word plus statement issued last Friday by the Middle East Quartet and you might be surprised by what turns up. For instance, the Quartet basically told the Palestinians that a peace deal with Israel would require them to end all other claims - implying abandonment of the "right of return." The Quartet also reiterated that Palestinian unity required Hamas to commit "to non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations." It even demanded the immediate release of Gilad Schalit. The settlement of Ofra with the outskirts of Ramallah in the background. Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski...

The Dead Sea will be eliminated next week from a contest to choose the seven natural wonders of the world, because of a Palestinian boycott over the participation of an Israeli settler council. The New 7 Wonders of Nature is a global Internet contest under the slogan: "If we want to save anything, we first need to truly appreciate it." In 2007 it chose the new seven man-made wonders of the world. Its rules state that if a nominee site is located in more than one country, all countries in which it is located must form an Official Supporting Committee...

The U.S. State Department may have toned down its demand on Israel to freeze construction within Judea and Samaria. In a press briefing Monday, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly reiterated that the obligations signed by Israel under the Roadmap require Israel to freeze all construction within Judea and Samaria, including “natural growth.” Nevertheless, Kelly hinted that the U.S. is open to “negotiations.” The official stated that both Israel and PA Arabs must honor their commitment to the Roadmap plan towards peace. “For the Palestinians, it means ending incitements to violence against Israel and demonstrating an ability to provide security. For...

Their names often pay tribute to Iranian culture and their accented speech still sings the unique music of the language, even after decades. They stay on top of Iranian news, culture, sports and trivia, and stay in touch with friends and family living in a country whose distance from Israel is measured in more than geography. The Israeli community of Iranian Jews numbers about 170,000 -- including the first generation of Israeli-born -- and is deeply proud of its roots. On Tuesday, around 150 members of the community demonstrated in the Israeli city of Holon, home to the country's largest...