2 Katyusha rockets from Lebanon land near Nahariya

By AP AND JPOST.COM STAFF    September 11, 2009 

 

Large forces of police, firefighters and Magen David Adom paramedics were dispatched on Friday afternoon, as two Katyusha rockets fired from southern Lebanon landed in open areas in the western Galilee.

 No casualties or damage were reported in the incident, which marked the fourth such attack this year.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that one of the rockets was located near Nahariya, and the IDF said that the rockets were apparently 122 millimeters in diameter.

A senior Lebanese military official said that the rockets were fired from the town of Qlaileh, near the Lebanese port city of Tyre.

Lebanese security officials said IDF troops promptly fired at least two rockets back, which landed near Qlaileh. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported that nine Israeli artillery shells fell near the town, but there were no reports of casualties or damage.

The IDF said it fired artillery at the source of rocket fire. The military "views this incident very severely and we hold the government of Lebanon responsible," a statement said.

No group took immediate responsibility for the cross-border attack, which came after recent exchanges of threats between Israel and Hizbullah, though the guerrilla group was not believed to have been involved in the incident.

Remembering 9-11-2001 -- accurately

Eight years ago, hijacked passenger jets destroyed the World Trade Center. -- A.G. Sulzberger, New York Times. 9-11-2009


Eight years ago, we were visited by the furies of Arab lands. -- Fouad Ajami, WSJ 9-11-2009

[There is indeed] a correct reading of the wellsprings of Islamist radicalism. Those ...who had struck American soil on 9/11 . . . were Arabs. Their terrorism came out of the pathologies of Arab political life. Their financiers were Arabs, and so were those crowds in Cairo and Nablus and Amman that had winked at the terror and had seen those attacks as America getting its comeuppance on that terrible day.

Ajami is a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and an adjunct fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution

What the Israel-Palestinian conflict is really about (12)

What Is Peace?


By YOSSI ALPHER, Op Ed, New York Times, September 10, 2009 excerpt. Yossi Alpher, former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, co-edits bitterlemons.org.

Israelis ... perceive ... a deep-seated Arab and Muslim rejection of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state.

That was not an obstacle to a “cold peace” with Israel’s neighbors, with whom the borders were clear. But when the Palestinians’ quarrel with Israel touches on fundamental issues of ownership, whether in the claims of 1948 refugees or in the competing claims to the Temple Mount, the question of legitimacy comes to the fore.

This is how even moderate Israelis view the public rejection by the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s peace offer in 2008 — a set of proposals that Israelis deemed extraordinarily generous.

French Jewish school firebombed

September 9, 2009

PARIS (JTA) -- A Jewish school in southern France was firebombed.

No one was injured in the Tuesday morning attack on the ORT Bramson Jewish school in Marseille.

About 66 feet of cypress hedges were set afire, and four parked cars in front of the building were burned by homemade aerosol bombs, according to French reports.

Three bombs were found on the premises, according to The Associated Press.

During the incident, the 400 students at the school were not aware there had been an attack because the targeted area was not near any classrooms, school director Maurice Cohen-Zagouri told the Le Metro daily.

No suspects have been identified, but security cameras on the site were handed over to police for investigation.

The local police chief, Philippe Klayman, said his force would pay “particular attention” to Jewish institutions during the upcoming holidays.

Airline terror trial: The bomb plot to kill 10000 people

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Three British Muslims have been convicted in England of planning a series of co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks on transatlantic airliners, which could have killed up to 10,000 people.

 

The plot was detected in August 2006, within days, it is believed of its implementation. The flights to be commandeered all departed within 2 hours and 35 minutes of each other, to Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, San Francisco, Washington and New York and police believed there would have been no chance of stopping the attacks once all the aircraft were in the air.

What the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is really about (11)

What prevents peace?
From Arab perspective, Jewish sovereignty, self-determination are anathema

Moshe Dann, Ynewnews.com September 7, 2009 excerpts

The real issue is Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 as a Jewish state.

No "peace plan" - even the most extreme which requires Israel to withdraw from all territory conquered in 1967 - will solve the Arab-Muslim problem of allowing a nominally Jewish state to exist in any form.

The struggle is not over dividing territory, but whether Israel deserves to exist at all.


The author, a former assistant professor of History (CUNY) is a journalist and writer living in Jerusalem

Ahmadinejad: discussion over Iran's nuclear issue is over

Ahmadinejad: Iran 'Will Never Negotiate' Over Nuclear 'Rights'

Monday , September 07, 2009 AP

TEHRAN, Iran — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday Iran will neither halt uranium enrichment nor negotiate over its nuclear rights but is ready to sit and talk with world powers over "global challenges."

His statements came as the international nuclear watchdog warned of a "stalemate" over Iran's nuclear program. Members of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency began meetings in Vienna that could set the stage for a toughening of sanctions against Iran.

Ahmadinejad also said Iran will present a package of proposals for talks to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany but rejected any deadline for such talks.

He said the package would "identify challenges facing humanity ... and resolve global concerns."

But he said that "from our point of view, Iran's nuclear issue is over. We continue our work within the framework of global regulations and in close interaction with the International Atomic Energy Agency." But "we will never negotiate over obvious rights of the Iranian nation," he said.

He said the only two aspects of the nuclear file he was willing to discuss were "creating peaceful nuclear energy for all countries" and a mechanism to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons and encourage global nuclear disarmament.

President Barack Obama and European allies have given Iran until the end of September to take up an offer of nuclear talks with six world powers and trade incentives should it suspend uranium enrichment activities. If not, Iran could face harsher punitive sanctions.

The U.S. and some of its allies accuse Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has denied the charges, saying its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity, not a bomb.

Iran has repeatedly vowed it will never suspend enrichment work, saying it has every right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel. The enrichment process can produce either fuel for a reactor or the material for a warhead.

"It is very clear that this (deadline) is incompatible with the Iranian nation's needs and direction today," Ahmadinejad told a press conference Monday. "Resolving global issues requires constructive interaction on the basis of justice and respect."

Ahmadinejad said Iran will continue to cooperate with the IAEA over regulations on safeguards on its nuclear sites, "but we will resist if the agency is influenced by political pressures."

The agency's chief Mohamed ElBaradei, however, said Monday that the situation over Iran's nuclear program has reached a "stalemate."

He said Iran has not suspended uranium enrichment and not cleared up other lingering questions about possible military dimensions of its atomic activities, and he urged Tehran to "substantively re-engage" with the IAEA.

Iran says allegations of nuclear weapons studies by Tehran is based on forged documents but the U.S. and its European allies want to draw Iran back into negotiations over such concerns.

"The proposals we have prepared seeks to identify challenges facing humanity and basic directions for a durable solution to those challenges ... we are ready, within a logical and just framework, to sit and talk with all those ... who can make contribution to reform global affairs," Ahmadinejad told reporters.

The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — the U.S., France, Britain, Russia and China — plus Germany offered Iran a modified package of economic incentives June last year in return for suspending its uranium enrichment activities or face harsher sanctions.

Iran has said the incentives package has some "common ground" with Tehran's own proposals for a resolution to the standoff.

Germany and France — both important trade partners with Iran — have recently become far more forceful in their threats of possible sanctions.

Ahmadinejad did not directly address Obama's calls for a U.S.-Iran dialogue, and instead renewed an offer he has made in the past to hold a public debate with the U.S. president.

"Once again, I announce that I'm ready for debate and dialogue in front of global media on global issues," he said.