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Rice: Goal of Talks Is Two States for Two Peoples
 U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meeting Saturday with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, said that the goal of resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace talks must be the establishment of two state for two peoples. Rice arrived Saturday afternoon in Israel in the first leg of a Middle East tour aimed at reviving peace talks. Before landing in Israel, Rice said she would not be arriving with a specific plan for resuming talks. (Ha'aretz)
Jewish Students Bring Cheer to North
by Yaakov Lappin
 Kiryat Shmona's crisp mountainous air was filled with sounds of hand drums, clapping, and the notes of a flute, as Jewish students from around the world arrived in Israel's northern frontier communities to bring cheer to areas battered by Hizbullah's rockets during the Lebanon war. The initiative, called Leading Up North, was organized by the Schusterman Foundation's Center for Leadership Initiatives (CLI), and was designed as a direct response to the harsh war with Hizbullah. Shosh Buzaglo, a teacher from nearby Metula, said: "They brought Zionism, hope, and love of the country, without limits. They should remember they always have a home here." (Ynet News)
Olmert: Israel Spearhead for All Jews
by Yaakov Lappin
 When Yonatan, 21, an IDF combat soldier, met with Michael, 23, an American-Jew from Texas, there was an immediate connection. "We are brothers," said Michael, his arm placed around Yonatan. "Israel is gorgeous. Israeli women are beautiful. I give this country two thumbs up," he added. Michael, like 3,000 other young Jews from around the world, arrived in Israel last week as part of the Taglit/birthright Tour, which aims to grant every Jewish youth in the Diaspora a free opportunity to visit Israel and connect with their roots. (Ynet News)
See also Text of Olmert's Speech to birthright/Taglit;
See also Birthright Israel Party in Tel Aviv (YouTube)
U.S. Ambassador to Israel: U.S. Will Stand by Israel in Face of Iranian Threat
by Tovah Lazaroff and Leah Granof
 United States Ambassador Richard Jones said last week that his country was committed to Israel's security in light of the "serious threat" Iran and Hamas posed to Israel's existence. "Iran's president [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] openly calls for wiping Israel off the map. Hamas leader Khaled Mashal stubbornly refuses to accept that Israel even has a right to exist," said Jones. He spoke in Jerusalem to gathering of the biennial national convention of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel. "When you add Iran's nuclear ambition to an already unstable mix of regional tensions the serious nature of Israel's security challenge becomes clear," Jones said. (Jerusalem Post)
Fourteen Carter Center Advisors Resign Over Book
by Ernie Suggs
 Fourteen members of a Carter Center advisory board quit Thursday in protest of Jimmy Carter's latest book. In a letter to Carter, the members of the Board of Councilors wrote that the former president had "clearly abandoned your historic role of broker, in favor of becoming an advocate for one side." (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
See also Former Aide Criticizes Carter over Mideast Book (Los Angeles Times)
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Six Months in Terrorist Captivity
 Six months have passed since the unprovoked abduction of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser (pictured top) on the Israeli side of the Lebanese border, an action that precipitated widespread confrontation between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hizbullah terrorist organization. To date no word has been heard from the two captive soldiers, and neither their families nor the government of Israel have any knowledge of their whereabouts or their current state of health. Two weeks prior to their abduction, another soldier,  Gilad Shalit (bottom), was abducted as well, this time on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza. His family, too, anxiously awaits news from him. Especially grave is the fact that these unprovoked abductions were carried out on sovereign Israeli territory. (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
The Libeling of a People Surges with a Vengeance
by Alessandra Stanley
Diatribes against the Jews are shockingly crude in Arab television programs and newspapers. They are also shockingly commonplace, “the elevator music for the Arab world,” as David Ignatius, an international affairs columnist for The Washington Post, puts it in “Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century: The Resurgence,” a PBS documentary that was broadcast last week. And that background noise has become more strident and pervasive over the last few years, spread by satellite television and the Internet throughout the Middle East and North Africa, with echoes reverberating deep into immigrant groups in Europe. (New York Times)
See also Three Religions Collide (YouTube)
Israel Slams Egypt for Violating Border Deal
by Ryan R. Jones
 Egypt is violating the agreement it made with Israel regarding the Gaza-Egypt border by allowing the transfer of money via the border to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, charged an Israeli minister last week. At the weekly cabinet meeting, Immigration Absorption Minister Ze'ev Boim said that Egypt is obliged to impose a financial embargo on the Hamas government according to the terms of the U.S.-brokered deal under which Israel surrendered control of the so-called "Philadelphi Corridor"  to Egyptian and Palestinian control. The latest violation of the border agreement came on Saturday, when Egyptian officials permitted Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh (pictured) to smuggle some $20 million into the Gaza Strip following his pilgrimage to Mecca. (All Headline News)
Israeli Intelligence: Al-Qaeda Sent to Lebanon to Attack UNIFIL, Iran Rearming Hizbullah, Hamas
by Gideon Alon
 The head of IDF Military Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday: "Between several dozen and several hundred al-Qaeda activists have arrived in Lebanon from Iraq and Pakistan, in accordance with instructions from the group's leadership to deploy in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt in order to carry out terror attacks." He added that the targets could be UNIFIL and other Western interests. He said a small number of al-Qaeda operatives had infiltrated Gaza, and a few have been found in Nablus in the West Bank. According to Yadlin, Hizbullah has not left southern Lebanon and arms transfers from Syria are continuing apace, It is currently focused on rehabilitating its strength with the help of large quantities of arms from Iran. (Ha'aretz)
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