By MIKE SEID  
Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the UN and Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs president, has a stern warning for the religious faithful. "Taking the holy sites of Jerusalem which are presently protected and secure and putting them under the uncertainty of Palestinian rule or of some poorly defined special regime for the holy basin is to put their future in great doubt."
Gold's warning is not simply a theoretical exercise. At next month's planned summit in Annapolis, the fate of this special city appears to be on the table.
It all began with a statement by Vice Premier Haim Ramon two weeks ago. "Whoever thinks the subject of discussions will be limited to the structure of Palestinian institutions is deluded. Israel has an interest to get recognition of all of Jerusalem's Jewish neighborhoods, and to hand over control of Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians," he said.
His plan proposes splitting Jerusalem, transferring the city's Arab neighborhoods to Palestinian control and giving up sovereignty over parts of the Old City (excluding the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall).
Ramon's statement unleashed a firestorm of political activity and realignment. But, as Gold takes pains to explain, Jerusalem is ...   more »

The US has been warned, and warned, and warned again
Administration officials in Washington are working around the clock to facilitate the convening of an international conference on the Middle East in Annapolis, Maryland next month.
The primary purpose of this gathering will be to sanction the severance of Judea and Samaria from the rest of Israel’s national homeland, and out of it create a new Arab state called Palestine.
Israel’s “eternal and indivisible capital” Jerusalem is also to be divided.
On this score the international community is - without exception - in agreement.
But all is not going well for chief conference-convener, US President George W. Bush, and his point man, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Ms. Rice has made numerous trips to the Middle East in recent months, and plans another hop over in early November - just days after completing her last shuttle.
She has grown increasingly desperate to nail down some form of joint Israel-PLO agreement on which to base the conference so as to ensure it achieves some form of “success” before it actually takes place.Thank God the “Palestinians” who - as the by now classic saying goes, never miss an opportunity to miss an ...   more »

By Caroline B. Glick      
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It goes without saying that if and when a decision is made in Jerusalem or Washington to carry out an attack against Iran's nuclear installations the public will only learn of the decision in retrospect. All the same, over the last few weeks, it has been impossible to miss the fact that the Iranian nuclear program has become the subject of intense and ever increasing international scrutiny. This naturally gives rise to the impression that something is afoot. 
Take for example the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency Muhammad elBaradei's recent remarks on the subject. Speaking to Le Monde on Monday, elBaradei asserted that it will take Iran between three to eight years to acquire a nuclear arsenal. Consequently, he argued, there is no reason to consider conducting a military strike against Teheran' program. There is still plenty of time for diplomacy, or sanctions or even incentives for the ayatollahs, he said. 
ElBaradei's statement is only interesting when it is compared to a statement he made in December 2005 to the Independent. Back then Baradei's view was that Iran was just "a few months" away from producing atomic bombs. But then ...   more »

Intel official says Washington promoting Palestinian state to pay for Arab support
By Aaron Klein
Satellite image of Iran's nuclear facility in Natanz
JERUSALEM – A senior Palestinian intelligence official said that based on meetings with American diplomats he "understood" the U.S. plans to target Iran's suspected nuclear installations in two to three months if negotiations with Tehran don't generate a major breakthrough.
The official, speaking to WND yesterday on condition of anonymity, said according to what he "understood," the U.S. will "pay" for Arab support for a U.S. strike against Iran by creating a temporary Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank by next summer.
The official met last week with U.S. secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her trip here earlier this month to prepare for a U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian summit slated for next month in which Israel is expected to outline a future Palestinian state in most of the West Bank.
Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in recent weeks hinted at willingness to give away sections of Jerusalem.
The Palestinian intelligence official would not say if he was basing his information on any specific statements by U.S. officials that a military ...   more »

Having lived in both places, I can tell you: There is little difference between Washington and Hollywood. Neither is real. Both are filled with celebrity wannabes. And both thrive on sequels. Welcome to "War in Iraq II."
If you liked the first one, you'll love the second. Flush with "success" from the first War in Iraq – and even though it's still far from over – George Bush and Dick Cheney have already launched their next production. This new war takes place in Iran, but it features the same characters and the same plot.
In fact, it has the same characters – Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush – reading from the same script. In March 2003, making the case for Iraq War I, Dick Cheney asserted: "Saddam Hussein has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons." In October 2007, he vowed: "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." In September 2002, Condi Rice warned: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." This week, she stated that Iran's nuclear policies "constitute perhaps the single greatest challenge to America's security interests in the Middle East and around the world."
The ...   more »

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By Oleg Shchedrov
MAFRA, Portugal (Reuters) - Russia's President Vladimir Putin drew a parallel on Friday between U.S. plans for a missile shield in Europe and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, widely regarded as the closest the world came to nuclear war.
But the Kremlin leader added that his personal friendship with U.S. President George W. Bush has helped to prevent the latest U.S. initiative from turning into a new global disaster.
"I would remind you how relations were developing in an analogous situation in the middle of the 1960s," he told a news conference after the Russia-EU summit in the Portugal.
"Analogous actions by the Soviet Union when it deployed rockets on Cuba provoked the Cuban missile crisis," Putin added. "For us, technologically, the situation is very similar. On our borders such threats to our country are being created."
A decision by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to send nuclear missiles to Communist ally Cuba put the world on the brink of nuclear war in 1962. After days of dramatic negotiations, Khrushchev agreed to pull out the missiles.
Russia has been outraged by the U.S. decision to deploy a radar in the ...   more »

By Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Anxious not to repeat mistakes of past Middle East peace-making, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has turned to former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter for tips ahead of her own conference this year.
Rice invited Carter, a vocal critic of Bush administration policies, to the State Department on Wednesday where the two discussed his Arab-Israeli peacemaking efforts in the 1970s, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Friday.
Their talks were "good and cordial," he said. They focused on the Middle East and not Carter's recent criticism of President George W. Bush's policies in Iraq and elsewhere.
A Soviet specialist, Rice also telephoned another former Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who tried, and ultimately failed, in his eight years in office to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together.
"She's trying to draw on the historical record and the experiences of others to see -- see what she can glean and how that may be applicable to the current day," McCormack said.
"She is a student of history and has a keen appreciation for how we can apply the lessons of history, what we can learn from those who have gone before us," he said....   more »

Agency tried to revoke licenses for paperwork mistakes
Red's manager Ryan Horsley
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been given a rebuke by Congress for its aggressive attacks on firearms dealers who may have paperwork errors in their record-keeping.
The citation in the 2008 Appropriations Bill was pointed out by Ryan Horsley, who manages the historic Red's Trading Post in Twin Falls, Idaho, and blogs about 2nd Amendment issues.
As WND has reported, his company is in a court fight now with the federal agency over paperwork errors that largely involved insignificant issues, such as a missing poster or a purchaser failing to provide a county of residence to accompany and street and city address.
Inspectors for the BATFE have been visiting his business regularly in search of records mistakes, he said.
WND also reported earlier how the store appears to be caught up in a new campaign for gun control, focusing on the elimination of retail outlets through technical rules infractions.
"We have documented our experiences in hopes of showing what the ATF is doing to legitimate businesses and how they disregard our senators and congressman," Horsley said. " I try not to take it ...   more »

3 active jihadists in American training class under way
At least three active terrorists are taking part in a U.S.-run military training course currently underway in the Middle East, according to the author of a new book.
WND's Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein, author of the recently released "Schmoozing with Terrorists," said yesterday he discovered the terrorists are enrolled at a U.S. course in the West Bank city of Jericho that is training about 300 members of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah security forces.
The U.S. has been running bases in the West Bank City of Jericho to train Fatah militias since the late 1990s. Over the years, the U.S. also has provided Fatah militias with arms, reportedly including thousands of high-powered assault rifles during the past year alone.  
In August, the State Department announced the U.S. will begin new training courses for Fatah militias in an effort to bolster Abbas against Hamas, which took over the Gaza Strip in June when the terror group easily defeated American-backed Fatah forces in the territory.
The U.S. training programs include courses in the use of weapons. They are being partially funded with a $86.5 million grant approved by Congress in ...   more »