On Sunday Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will bring the matter of IDF reserve soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser before his cabinet. The two reservists, who are presumed dead, have not been heard from since they were kidnapped to Lebanon by Hizbullah on July 12, 2006. Olmert will instruct his ministers to vote on whether Israel should release Samir Kuntar…
What on earth could have prompted the Israeli government to negotiate the current "cease-fire" with Hamas? What could have brought the government to negotiate with this Iranian proxy group which makes no bones about its intention to use the lull in fighting to expand its arsenal and army ahead of the next round of fighting? What could have motivated Jerusalem…
The Olmert-Livni-Barak-Yishai government's liquidation sale of Israel's strategic assets opened officially this week. Iran's proxies have pounced on the merchandise. The first asset sold was the security of southern Israel. The Olmert-Livni-Barak-Yishai government's "cease-fire" with Hamas transferred all power to determine the fate of the residents of southern Israel to Iran's Palestinian proxy. Under the "agreement," Hamas will refrain from…
In an interview Sunday with Britain's Observer, US President George W. Bush made an important observation. The president argued that the common wisdom about the Middle East, which argues that Palestinian statelessness is the root of regional instability and jihadism, is incorrect. It is Iranian aggression rather than the lack of Palestinian sovereignty that lies at the root of the…
There's one thing you have to admire about the Iranians – they always tell you just what they think of you. They never beat around the bush. On Tuesday, the day after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki completed his three-day visit to Iran, his envoy to the Islamic Republic received a care package – delivered to his front door. When…
The Olmert-Livni-Barak-Yishai government is marching the country into another military confrontation with an Iranian proxy army. As was the case in the last confrontation with an Iranian proxy army two years ago, the country's leaders are fully committed to Israel's strategic defeat in the current one. Tuesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak…
Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei's most prominent personality trait is his chutzpah. Two weeks before Israel destroyed the North Korean-built nuclear reactor in Syria on September 6, ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was complaining to Australian television about the US's decision to augment its military assistance to Israel by $30 billion over the next 10 years. The move,…
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suffered a humiliating setback this week in his quest for international legitimacy. Ahmadinejad is expected to arrive in Rome this week to participate in a UN summit on the global food crisis (which has been caused by the rise in oil prices that Ahmadinejad is so pleased to have had a role in fomenting). Ahmadinejad was…
By all accounts, New York millionaire Morris Talansky cut a sympathetic figure in Jerusalem's District Court on Tuesday. As he described the hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash he gave to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert since he first met him in the early 1990s, he convinced his audience that truly the only thing that concerned him was the welfare…
Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza was presented to the world as a strategic bid to enhance prospects for peace between the Palestinians and Israel. Proponents of the move argued that removing all Israeli civilians and military personnel from Gaza would take away the source of Palestinian grievances. Once fully appeased, the Palestinians would be forced to behave responsibly, abjure terrorism…