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Stanford: Nobel Laureate a "Regular" at Hebrew U.
by Judy Siegel and Tom Hope
  Prof. Roger Kornberg, the Stanford University biologist who was named on Wednesday as this year's Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, just spent four months at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is a fellow at the Alexander Silberman Institute for Life Sciences. Kornberg, whose father won a Nobel Prize for medicine nearly 50 years ago, has been a visiting professor at Hebrew University every summer since 1986. His Israeli-born wife, Yahli, is the daughter of the late historian and Knesset clerk Netanel Lorch, and their three children are fluent Hebrew speakers. (Jerusalem Post)
Hamas Won't Recognize Israel, Palestinian Prime Minister Says
 Hamas will not recognize Israel or give in to international pressure that has crippled the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told tens of thousands of supporters at a rally in the Gaza Strip. He said his best offer to Israel was a temporary truce in return for establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in Jerusalem, over which Israel claims complete sovereignty. (Los Angeles Times)
UN Force Faces Battle to Secure Peace
by Stephen Farrell
 Hizballah is a guerrilla army that has gone quiet, but not gone away. Its choice of a discreet location north of the Litani river is no accident - far from the busy crossroads and strategic bridges where the Lebanese Army, supported by a newly strengthened peacekeeping United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (Unifil), is taking up its positions near to the Israeli border. The new Unifil, bigger and better armed than its predecessor, has announced “robust” new rules of engagement to offset fears that that it will prove to be just as feeble. “At some point [UNIFIL] will come up against the hard interests of the players on the ground,” said Michael Young, opinion page editor of the Beirut Daily Star newspaper. “The south is a vital area for Hizballah. The fact that it can’t conduct any sort of military operations in this area is a very big handicap, as it is for Iran and Syria.” (Times-UK)
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Israel Names New U.S. Envoy
 Israel Wednesday named Salai Meridor, a former head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, a quasi-governmental agency that promotes Jewish immigration, as its new ambassador to the U.S. He will replace current Ambassador Danny Ayalon in January. (Reuters/Washington Post)
See also Israel's New Envoy - Joshua Mitnick
Prime Minister Olmert and Meridor come from the same political lineage of prominent revisionist Zionist families who dreamed of a Jewish state stretching from the Mediterranean eastward beyond the Jordan River. In recent years, both have departed with that mind-set, moving to Israel's pragmatic center and acknowledging that holding on to all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip doesn't square with the concept of a Jewish state. (Washington Times)
Olmert to Rice: Hamas Must Release Kidnapped Soldier First
by Attila Somflavi
 Prime Minister Olmert told U.S. Secretary of State Rice during her visit last week that Israel would not agree to release Palestinian prisoners prior to the return of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. According to Olmert, releasing prisoners first would bring about heightened demands from Hamas. (Ynet News)
See also Hamas-Fatah Friction Delaying Shalit's Release - Moran Rada (Ynet News)
Israel Arms Sales to India Top $900 Million a Year
by Arieh Egozi
 The Indian defense magazine India Defense reported that Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi and Navy vice-chief Vice-Admiral Venkat Bharathan lately paid secret visits to Israel to get updates on defense systems being developed in Israel for the Indian Army. Israel is building a Phalcon early warning system for India at a cost of $1.1 billion, with the first of three AWACS planes scheduled for delivery in November 2007. (Ynet News)
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