from today’s washington times, by joel mowbray
“In a keynote speech earlier this month to the American Task Force on Palestine, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sounded very unlike President Bush on the Middle East, lavishing praise on Palestinians and implicitly attacking Israel.”
full text of article

AJC released its Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion, the first report gauging U.S. Jews in the wake of the summer war with Hezbollah. The survey found a majority of American Jews remain skeptical about the chances for achieving an overall peace in the Middle East and worry that the conflict may lead again to […]

the rhetoric continues
full article from deutsche presse middle east news here 

from rafah, gaza strip
by mehdi lebouachera
agence france-presse (afp)
19 october 2006
Israeli soldiers were ploughing up the ground Thursday and destroying tunnels allegedly used to smuggle arms from Egypt in their deepest incursion into the Gaza Strip for more than a year.
Hundreds of troops were operating up to four kilometres (2.5 miles) inside Palestinian territory to […]

Former President Jimmy Carter is releasing a book on the Middle East, titled “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” Judging from an advance review manuscript of the new work, published by Simon & Schuster and set for release November 14, Carter places the bulk of the blame on Israel for its continuing conflict with the Palestinians. But […]

In response to rapidly growing attention given to America’s dangerous dependence on foreign oil, AJC has updated its comprehensive primer: “Over a Barrel: How America’s Dependence on Foreign Oil Endangers our National Security, Economy, and Environment”.
full text of paper available on ajc website

from the wall street journal october 9:
“Israel has seen better leadership. The shoes of Ben Gurion, Begin and Rabin have never looked larger, or emptier…”
however, the article ends on a somewhat more optimistic note
full text of article

from ron ben-yishai in ynetnews.com
9 october 2006
north korean nuclear test proves that new strategy on iranian issue is needed

full story here

from melanie phillips in london
“these terrible events”
september 27, 2006
“The speech by Foreign Secretary Margaret Becker at the Labour party conference was simply embarrassing. Thin? It was intellectually anorexic. It was the speech of someone who seemed to have nothing original or even half-way thoughtful to say about anything. But one paragraph in particular caught my […]