AxisMundi Jerusalem
Inside Israel and the Palestinian Territories
from Global News Journal:
Berlusconi charms Israel with EU talk
Berlusconi and Netanyahu shake hands during a meeting in Italy last year
Silvio Berlusconi is seldom shy about making headlines, and he's also known to turn on the charm when he meets foreign leaders.
So it was hardly surprising the Italian prime minister kicked off a three-day visit to Israel on Monday by declaring his hope that Israel might one day become a member of the European Union.
"My greatest dream, a
Netanyahu and Berlusconi shake hands during a meeting in Italy last year
s long as I am a mover and shaker in politics, is to welcome Israel as one of the European Union's member states," the 73-year-old billionaire announced to Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who went on to praise the shared Judeo-Christian roots of Rome and Jerusalem.
While Berlusconi's comments made headlines, at least in Israel and Italy, it's not the first time he's laid out such an ambition -- he said almost exactly the same thing during a visit to Croatia in January 2003, when he backed Zagreb's bid to join the EU and said he hoped Israel, Turkey, Ukraine and Moldova would follow.
Tony Blair assailed at a Palestinian mosque
Tony Blair, the Middle East envoy for the “Quartet” of powers – the European Union, the United States, Russia and the United Nations, was assailed by a Palestinian man during a visit to a mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday.
“You are terrorism,” the man shouted as guards tried to cover his mouth. “He is not welcome in the land of Palestine.”
from Global News Journal:
Austrian far-right leader isolated over Israel stance
Senior figures from across Austria's political spectrum have condemned the head of the far-right Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, over his party's European election campaign directed against Israel and Turkey.
In an advertisement in the newspaper Kronen Zeitung, Freedom opposes the accession of Turkey and Israel to the European Union. Although Turkey is in EU accession talks, Israel is not.
A covert challenge to Iran’s nuclear ambitions?
Israeli officials aren’t talking, but Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper is quoting intelligence experts and an unnamed former CIA agent as saying that Israel is waging a covert war of sabotage inside Iran in an effort to delay its suspected attempts to build a nuclear weapon.
An intelligence source in the Middle East has told Reuters the Israeli campaign includes sending letter bombs or anthrax-tainted mail to scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear programme and sabotaging related infrastructure. European countries and the United States are also part of the cloak-and-dagger war, the source said.
from Global News Journal:
Talking about talking to Hamas
Should Israel and/or its allies talk to men like these, the Palestinian Islamists of Hamas, who run the Gaza Strip?
That's a question that has been revived this week following the end of Israel's 22-day war in Gaza, which left Hamas rule apparently intact and 1.5 million people in desperate need, and the arrival in the White House of President Barack Obama, who has indicated he might be willing to talk to people his predecessor George W. Bush had shunned.
