Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was in Qatar this week for the Doha Forum on Democracy Development and Free Trade.  This marked the first time Livni traveled to a Gulf nation and held talks with high-level officials there.  She held bilateral meetings with leaders of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman, among other Arab countries.  In addressing the forum on Monday, Livni sought Arab support for moderate movements in the Middle East and reiterated Israel’s commitment to peaceful relations with her neighbors.

Click here for the full text of the Foreign Minister’s speech.

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The Hamas Dilemma: part of the problem or part of the solution?
By Israel E. Altman*

Introduction

The Gaza impasse is causing Europe to rethink its stance toward Hamas. Hamas remains on the EU terror list and the EU considers the PA, not the Hamas government in Gaza, as its sole interlocutor. But recent events are triggering a new European debate where proponents of engagement with Hamas are gaining ground.

What should the EU approach to Hamas be? Hamas plays a central role in Palestinian society and politics, and its influence on the prospects of a Palestinian-Israeli peace accord is crucial. Hamas also won a democratic election in January 2006. Shouldn’t the EU engage Hamas formally as a partner in the international efforts to settle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Will such engagement not convince Hamas to moderate its positions and conduct? And isn’t it the case that isolation, by contrast, will further radicalize it?

So far, Hamas has not made any concession on the three conditions for engagement laid out by the Quartet – recognition of Israel, acceptance of the agreements which the PLO and the Palestinian Authority signed with Israel, and renunciation of terror- but do not these conditions demand that Hamas part with all its cards before negotiations even started? In short, shouldn’t Hamas become a part of the solution?

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The New York JCRC planted a field of some 4,200 balloons across the street from UN headquarters on Thursday, in a display meant to call international attention to the intolerable situation in the Israeli city of Sderot and its surrounding communities.

The red balloons were meant to represent the thousands of rockets, fired from the Gaza Strip, that have struck Sderot since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005. Sderot and the surrounding area have been under near-constant bombardment, suffering thousands of strikes by Qassam rockets, thousands of mortar shells, and recently an Iranian-made Katyusha (“Grad”) rocket.

The plight of Sderot’s citizens has gone largely unnoticed by the international media — and hence the international community — even as the city absorbs more and more projectiles fired from Gaza. It is hoped that international pressure can help stop the attacks that have damaged homes, hospitals and schools and force children to have class in bomb shelters.

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Israel welcomes US President George Bush on his first presidential
visit, one that will have a bearing on several fundamental issues for
Israel and the entire region. First and foremost, the president will
engage in substantive discussions with Israel’s leaders on the looming
nuclear threat posed by Iran. Secondly, he will seek to advance the new momentum for peace between Israel and the Palestinians that was renewed recently at the Annapolis
Conference.

The findings of the US National Intelligence Estimate that Iran had
paused in its nuclear enrichment program several years ago have not
reduced the Iranian threat today. Iran still poses a strategic threat,
not only to Israel, but to all of Europe, with long-range ballistic
missiles that have placed the entire continent within range. That is why
Iran has twice been sanctioned unanimously by the UN Security Council.
As the NIE report says clearly that Iran is continuing its enrichment
program, the international community must not lower the intensity of its
efforts to block that threat. Israel’s leaders look forward to
discussing with President Bush how best to deal with the Iranian nuclear
menace.

Israel cannot afford to risk the safety of its population on an estimate
that the Iranian nuclear threat has ceased – especially when the
Iranians make a point of announcing almost weekly the development of a
longer-range Shihab ballistic missile, capable of delivering a nuclear
warhead. President Bush’s visit is an opportunity for closer, effective
coordination between the leader of the free world and the only democracy
in the Middle East in facing the dangers posed by a nuclear Iran’s
extremist Islamic ideology.

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As part of the week long political jubilee known as the UN GA, usually the most interesting and important meetings take place behind the scenes, and this week has been no exception. Here we have some exclusive footage courtesy of Israel’s Channel 10, of our Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, meeting with the Emir of Qatar to discuss many important things.

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Here’s some exclusive footage of today’s protest outside the UN against Iran’s Holocaust denying President Ahmadinejad where our Foreign Minister spoke out. As you can see, thousands of Americans descended on the UN to voice their distaste for this hatemonger. In case you didn’t know, not only does he deny the Holocaust ever happened, and wishfully expresses the destruction of the entire Jewish State, but has overseen one of the most severe crack downs on civil liberties in Iran’s modern history.

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The talk backs to this post on MSNBC say everything needed to be said. However, we’d like to add just a few quick thoughts.

Really, how are we ever going to have peace when after we completely leave territory once used to attack us and have the international community, i.e. the UN, certify our departure, and we’re still attacked, threatened, and bombed?

And now, the violent apocalyptic terror organization doing all of this, creates a nifty video game so the next impressionable generation will continue this hate filled campaign of violence.

From MSNBC:

Hezbollah game celebrates war vs. Israel

Categories: Beirut, Lebanon
By Richard Engel, Middle East bureau chief

It was a launch party that would have made Microsoft proud, if Microsoft were an anti-Israeli militant group.

Hezbollah held on Thursday what was basically a giant garden party to announce the release of its latest video game, “Special Force II,” in which players destroy Israeli tanks, shoot down helicopters and destroy warships; killing Israeli soldiers earns bonus points.

VIDEO: Hezbollah launches video game
Under a giant marquee in Beirutג€™s dusty southern suburbs, Hezbollah displayed captured Israeli helmets, rifles and ammunition in glass trophy cases. The turret of an Israeli tank and jeep Hezbollah captured during its 34-day war with Israel last summer were set on mounds like garden statues, artistically lit by red and green spotlights. Families took pictures of the Israeli weapons as their children paid $10 for a copy of Special Force II, designed by Hezbollahג€™s “Internet Division.”

Victory party
All week, Hezbollah has been holding victory celebrations to coincide with the end of the conflict in August 2006, which Hezbollah considers a major victory. Itג€™s a war Hezbollah says is not over.

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