Middle East Update

Dennis Ross, for Washington Post
In several days of discussions in Jerusalem and Ramallah recently, I was struck by the nature of the debate I witnessed in both places. To my surprise, it wasn’t about the stalemate in the peace process or the Arab peace initiative. It was about the conflict between Palestinian organizations in Gaza [...]

David Horovitz, Jerusalem Post
The international community is being drip-fed the toxic assertion that, were it not for Israel, ours would be a peaceful world, a harmonious community of nations, living in tranquility alongside each other, respecting differences and working out disagreements in a spirit of compromise.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech on June 3:
With Allah’s help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine, by God’s will, we will witness the destruction of this regime (Israel) in the near future.

Olmert may free frozen tax funds to Fatah forces
Palestinian Authority Finance Minister Salaam Fayyad reported yesterday June 3 that donor funds have begun flowing into an account under his control, effectively ending the international boycott of the Hamas-led PA, said The Associated Press. According to Fayyad, the cash will be used to pay partial salaries [...]

More than four years after the fall of Baghdad, the United Nations is spending millions of dollars in Iraqi oil money to continue the hunt for Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. (By Colum Lynch, The Washington Post)

Four suspects have been arrested in an alleged terror plot aimed at blowing up fuel lines and fuel tanks at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, a law enforcement official tells CNN.

Shmuel Katz
The Koran relates that Muhammad in a single night was transported to heaven by Burak, a horse with wings, a woman’s face, and a peacock’s tail. He was first taken to what the Koran called the “uttermost mosque” - il masjad al aksa. Jerusalem is not mentioned in the story, and there was no [...]

Eli Lake
The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote in early June, on a resolution calling for President Bush to move the American Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, strengthening Israel’s position against recurring diplomatic efforts to take away its capital. The resolution commemorates the 40th anniversary of Israel’s victory in the Six-Day [...]

Several hundred residents in the Kassam-stricken city of Sderot held a demonstration ON May 31 at a major highway intersection in protest of what they said was the government’s helplessness in the face of daily Palestinian rocket attacks on the western Negev city. “We are prepared to stand here until someone cares, because everyone seems [...]

Rockets continue to fall on southern Israel
Fatah and Hamas representatives met in Cairo on Saturday June 2 to discuss a new truce with Israel and to defuse tensions between the two parties. Three other Palestinian factions also sent representatives to Cairo. Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that the Egyptians [...]