1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex  them in his sore displeasure. 6 Yet have I set  my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
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 She still believes she can pull it off
 In an communique released to the media Sunday, Nov. 18, the US President and Secretary of State announced they would host a Middle East conference with the support of prime minister of Israel Ehud Olmert and President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas later this fall. There was no mention of invitations or when they would be sent out. The date and the time of the meeting will be announced subsequently. Therefore, the state department would like the accreditation process to begin. When the date is finalized, arrangements for collecting accreditation will be announced. A senior US official told DEBKAfile Sunday night that, even if the meeting does take place - on Tues. Nov. 27 as presumed in the Middle East - it will be no better than a “Potiomkin village-type” façade behind which a sham peace conference performs.
Our Washington sources report that in recent conversations, Rice confessed to overrating the chances of bringing the Israelis and Palestinians together on joint statements and that, at best, they would agree to carry on talking.
The Secretary had no solution for the Gaza situation and the Hamas takeover of government there. The administration ...   more »

Olmert, Abbas to meet in Jerusalem in last-minute attempt to bridge differences as negotiations for joint statement remain deadlocked. Government stands to authorize release of 500 Palestinian prisoners as goodwill gesture to Abbas before conference
Roni Sofer
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet in Jerusalem on Monday for an eleventh-hour push in negotiations ahead of the steadily approaching US-led conference in Annapolis, Maryland. 
Empty vision is back / Uri Orbach  
Despite leftist claims, pursuit of two-state solution only led to death, suffering     
The meeting will take place after an Israeli cabinet meeting during which Olmert is expected to lead a discussion on Israel's obligation to freeze the expansion of settlement blocs in the West Bank and dismantle illegal outposts.  
The cabinet will not hold a vote on the implementation of the measures on Monday but only reiterate the government's commitment to them.  
Olmert is scheduled to meet with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband earlier in the day.  
The meeting follows a stalemate in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The talks, intended to iron out various differences on key issues ahead of the summit, failed to produce the much ...   more »

Calev Ben-David ,
There's an old medical joke, in which a doctor emerges from the operating room to announce: "The operation was a success, but the patient died."
Sometimes, though, it's the operation that fails, but the patient still pulls through.
Increasingly, as next week's scheduled Annapolis meeting looms ever closer, it looks like the operation isn't looking very hopeful - if one can stretch the metaphor to view the US-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian meeting as a diplomatic medical procedure to revive a moribund peace process.
The good news though, at least for those who view ongoing, substantive negotiations between Jerusalem and Ramallah as essential to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is that the patient is already showing new signs of life. Some promising concrete steps are starting to take, some serious issues are being raised, and the prognosis is at least more encouraging than it was a few months ago.
To start with, nothing is going to move forward, especially in the road map framework, unless the Palestinian Authority gets serious about controlling the terrorists in its own camp. There are now signs that the training and deployment of new PA security forces being carried out in the framework of the Dayton ...   more »

Sheera Claire Frenkel ,
Responding to the furor over her comments Sunday morning that Israeli Arabs would have a place in a future Palestinian state, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni clarified that "wherever Israeli Arabs choose to live, they will get full rights, whether it is here or in a Palestinian state."
Earlier, Arab Knesset members accused Livni of trying to undermine the rights of Arabs, following an incident in which she said the establishment of a Palestinian state would be a solution for all Palestinians, whether in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank or Israel.
"Livni is looking for ways to continue to undermine Arabs living in this land and relegate them to 'B'-class citizens," said Balad Party chairman Jamal Zahalka. "Her words show her true colors."
Hadash Chairman Muhammad Barakei called the foreign minister's words "an escalation in Livni's and her government's arrogance."
"The moderate right is becoming more and more extreme," added Barakei. "Apparently over 20 years ago, Livni the child did not learn that the Arab Palestinians in Israel are natives, living in their homeland, and did not immigrate from anywhere else as Israel did."
Livni, who made the comments following a meeting with French Foreign Minister ...   more »

Yaakov Katz ,
The IDF is in a heightened state of alert ahead of the Annapolis summit next week, out of fear that Hamas and Islamic Jihad will try to perpetrate a large-scale terror attack to derail the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, defense officials said Sunday.
The officials said there were currently 10 specific warnings concerning Palestinian plans to launch a terror attack before the summit.
The officials said that while there was no concrete intelligence that the warnings were connected to the peace summit, which is scheduled to be held at the Annapolis Naval Academy next Monday, the assumption was that terror groups - particularly Islamic Jihad and Hamas - would try to perpetrate an attack to spoil the peace efforts.
"There is a concerted effort today by Hamas and other terror groups to derail the talks," a defense official said. "One of the ways to do that is to carry out a large-scale attack inside Israel."
Meanwhile, Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razak Al-Yahya said on Sunday that PA security forces had busted a number of Hamas cells in the West Bank. Yahya told the Kuwaiti newspaper A-Rai that the cell members had armed themselves and had been training to ...   more »

Shoah references often infuriating, but there’s no room for law that enforces politeness
Guy Carmi
The Holocaust is an integral part of our Jewish and Israeli identity. It does not belong to any sector and references to it are common within the Israeli public discourse to a much larger extent than we’re willing to admit – starting with soccer stadiums (and not necessary in Jerusalem,) and ranging from disengagement opponents on the Right to Arab Knesset members on the Left and to Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz’s well-known “Judeo-Nazis” reference.  
Even Holocaust survivors made use of the Shoah recently as part of their protest over government allowances, when they marched to the Prime Minister’s Office wearing Yellow Stars.  
Knesset Member Colette Avital’s bill, which forbids references to the Holocaust (or more accurately, Nazi symbols and nicknames,) was approved last week by the Knesset Law Committee. Should the bill be approved by parliament, it will apply to all the abovementioned sectors. This bill would not hurt a specific community, but rather, affect the entire population. The bill’s objective is educational, and the proposed means of enforcement – a three-year prison term – is draconian and may serve to cool off and ...   more »