Geophysical Institute reports two quakes, measuring 3 and 4.2 on Richter scale and originating in northern Dead Sea, shook country Tuesday morning. Ynet readers report feeling earth moved in J'lem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and south
Roi Mandel
Two earthquakes, measuring 3 and 4.2 on the Richter scale, were felt across Israel on Tuesday morning. The Geophysical Institute of Israel (GII) reported that the quakes shook the entire country and originated in the northern Dead Sea.  
According to the Magen David Adom rescue services, there were no reports of injuries or damage.  Room for Concern   
The first quake was felt at around 11:19 am and the second one at 11:30 am. Ynet received reports from readers in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and southern Israel, who said that they had felt their houses shake for several seconds.
Rami Hopshteter, manager of the GII, explained that "this was a moderate earthquake, but was strong enough to be felt in many areas across the country. We received reports that the quake was felt in Haifa, Ashkelon, and of course Jerusalem, which is close to the quake's origin. We are certain that our Jordanian neighbors also felt it.
"The quake is not surprising," ...   more »

By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.       
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is behaving like a zealot. In her ever-more-rash pursuit of a Palestinian state, she is exhibiting the syndrome defined by the philosopher George Santana, as one who redoubles her efforts upon losing sight of the objective.
Let's recall: The objective laid out by President Bush, when he decided in June 2002 to support the creation of a homeland for the Palestinian people, was to provide a stable, secure neighbor for Israel, committed to leaving peaceably with the Jewish State.
Mr. Bush explicitly preconditioned such support on: an end to Palestinian terror; a Palestinian leadership that was not tainted by ties to terrorism; and the elimination of the infrastructure in Palestinian areas that enables such behavior. After the 9/11 attacks, the United States was in the business of eliminating terrorist-sponsoring regimes, not creating them.
Now, however, it is crystal clear that the only outcome from Condi Rice's idée fixe — namely that she will convene a Middle East peace conference at the U.S. Naval Academy for the purpose of extracting from Israel the territorial concessions needed rapidly to establish a Palestinian state — has nothing to do with the original ...   more »

By Caroline B. Glick   
 According to foreign reports, Israel destroyed a nuclear weapons installation in Syria in September. Never has a larger story been pushed under the rug by so many so quickly. What are we to make of this?
Over the weekend former federal prosecutor and the head of the non-governmental International Intelligence Summit, John Loftus, released a report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. His report was based on a private study of captured Iraqi documents. These were the unread Arabic language documents that US forces seized, but had not managed to translate after overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 2003.
After a prolonged battle between Congress and then director of US National Intelligence John Negroponte, President George W. Bush ordered those documents posted on a public access Web site last year. They were taken down after it was discovered that among the Iraqi documents were precise descriptions of how to build nuclear weapons.
As Loftus summarized, "The gist of the new evidence is this: Roughly one-quarter of Saddam's WMD was destroyed under UN pressure during the early to mid 1990s. Saddam sold approximately another quarter of his weapons stockpile to his Arab neighbors during the mid-to-late-1990's. The ...   more »

Etgar Lefkovits
Former minister and world-renowned Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky on Tuesday launched a new public campaign against the division of Jerusalem, citing an acute "identity crisis" among Israeli political leaders.
The multi-million dollar campaign, which is being launched by the privately funded 'One Jerusalem' organization that was set up in 2000 in order to maintain Jerusalem as a united city under Israeli sovereignty, comes just one week before the planned peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, and as the government is openly discussing the possibility of ceding Arab neighborhoods of the city to the Palestinians as part of a final peace agreement.
"Above all, Jerusalem is the base of our identity," Sharansky said at a Jerusalem press conference announcing the launching of the campaign. "The problem is that there are many people who want to get rid of their identity," added Sharansky, who has lately quit politics and has retired to a conservative Jerusalem research institute.
Sharansky, who resigned from the government of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak following Barak's willingness to divide Jerusalem at the failed Camp David talks in the summer of 2000, said that any future division of Jerusalem would weaken the Jewish people around the world, ...   more »